Caretakers' Emotional Responses to Providing Care to Elderly Loved Ones in Assisted Living Facilities - Essay Example

?Assignment 1b: Critique of Qualitative Research Report By ID# INSERT HERE Submitted in Partial Requirements for NURS 530 Trinity Western University DATE The assignment being critiqued here is Sanderson & Meyers (2008). The article was published in the Journal of Housing for the Elderly, a peer-reviewed and assessed journal, and thus it would be expected that the study would fulfil the criteria expected of a published article. The title of the paper is Caretakers' Emotional Responses to Providing Care to Elderly Loved Ones in Assisted Living Facilities, and is essentially a qualitative study discussing how loved ones and relations react to having to put elderly relatives into assisted living facilities. The study gathered information via semi-structured interview to allow for a full description of how these relatives felt without limitations given by quantitative studies. It has been suggested that the title of a paper is important in many ways (Kuper, Lingard & Levinson, 2008), particularly instructing the reader as to whether the article is relevant to their own research. In this case, the title is a good starting point for describing the content of the study, and this is a major strength of the study. However, there will be strengths and weaknesses within any study (Streubert &Carpenter, 1999), and the purpose of this paper is to discuss these in the context of other qualitative studies. It will primarily focus on how consistent the study is and how well it stays within the bounds established within the introduction and the literature review. Qualitative Research Appraisal As previously mentioned, the study by Sanderson & Meyers (2008) is a qualitative study and it is necessary to briefly discuss the general strengths and weaknesses of this research style before continuing. The main strength of a qualitative study is that the results are less constrained by researcher's expectations (Carr, 1994), and often leave a great deal of room for the respondents to provide information that may be unusual or out-of-context. In the nursing profession, for example, the main topic being discussed is humans, and as complex beings, the responses are often unexpected. In this case of this essay, for example, the use of semi-structured interviews allows for responses such as 'I started feeling a little resentful' (p10), an emotion which may not be typically associated with ailing relatives. There are fewer assumptions being placed on the data being collected, which leaves more room for hypothesis generation. Weaknesses of the Research by Sanderson & Meyers (2008) There are strengths, outlined above, of qualitative data that are applicable to this study. Correspondingly, there are weaknesses. Firstly, it can be hard to generate data and representations of this data for use in the published paper (Thorne, Kirkham & MacDonald-Emes, 1997). This can make it difficult for both readers and researchers to visualize the topic in a meaningful way (Carr, 1994). This lack of data also makes comparisons with other studies and individuals within the study more difficult, as the qualitative data collected is more difficult to graph. There are ways around this. One way to generate a more numeric version of the qualitative data is to use a technique called coding, which relies on giving mentioned words certain values and evaluating them in this way (Holloway & Wheeler, 2009). In the context of nursing, many heath bodies want results that can be applied in a meaningful way to the healthcare industry, and this can often be a challenge for qualitative data (Carr, 1994). Another issue with qualitative research that applies to this essay is that because of the complex nature of collecting data via interview or analysing long-answer responses to a questionnaire. This means that the sample size of qualitative studies is often far smaller than those in quantitative studies, making it harder to generalize the results to the population (Kuper et al, 2008). Sanderson & Meyers (2008) recognize this, and suggest that expanding the sample size would allow for 'greater applicability' (p17). The respondents to this study all came from one small area of Southern California, so these responses should not be used as anything but a guide in other areas of the United States. The sample were also mostly members of one socioeconomic background (probably due in part to the cost of these assisted living care facilities) and therefore the results should again be used with caution when attempting to generalize (Kuper et al, 2008). One other major point that was raised by the researchers with respect to socioeconomic background is that elderly loved ones may not respond as well to the facilities in lower-cost environments (Sanderson & Meyers, 2008, p17). This suggests that the feelings of 'resentment' (p16) that were expected (but did not manifest as consistently as expected in this study) or other issues may arise when considering elderly loved ones found in other environments. Although it is impressive that Sanderson & Meyer (2008) did manage to stick to their qualitative semi-structured interview style consistently throughout this study, there are major issues with using it because of their sample and the generalizability of the results. A suggestion here would be to do a preliminary test using a quantitative method to ascertain any focus points, then do a number of small semi-structured interview groups to gain the benefits of the quantitative style of data collection (Sandelowski, 1986). Additionally, the study has further problems with the sample. These arise from the fact that the respondents were recruited from events at the care-giving facilities. This suggests that they already had a significant amount of involvement with the care-giving facility itself, and these respondents may, therefore, be those who are more likely to have positive feelings about the care-giving process. This is something known as sample bias (Holloway & Wheeler, 2009) and could be avoided by Sanderson & Meyer (2008) if they had attempted to use a random-number generator to recruit people for the interviews. This itself is fraught with problems, as interviewees would be given the right of refusal and therefore the respondents again may have been those more likely to have a vested interest in the study. There seems to be no logical way around this at present, and therefore this cannot be considered a major flaw in the study as long as it is factored into any discussion and analysis of the study. Strengths of the Research by Sanderson & Meyers (2008) This paper has primarily focused on the weaknesses of the study thus far. There are, however, many strengths as would be expected from a paper published in a peer-reviewed journal. The paper clearly explains the aims of the research, and this is reflected in the succinct title and abstract (Sanderson & Meyer, 2008). Generally, the paper achieves what it sets out to do, which is give detailed responses from those with relatives in assisted-living facilities to illustrates the difficulties of putting the elderly in care. The research design was appropriate for this, because they wished to get detailed responses, which could not have been gathered using a quantitative study (Kuper et al, 2008). Sanderson & Mayer (2008) clearly understand the limitations of their study and incorporate this into their discussion, whilst forewarning about generalizability and making assumptions. The research also performs well ethically. The researchers recruited people from an event, and therefore the participants were well-versed on how the study would proceed and what their responses would be used for. In this sense, the paper succeeds in achieving its aims whilst behaving in an ethical manner. There is no clear indication of the relationship between the researcher and the participant but it can be assumed that this was anonymous, confidential and private from the description of the interview location (Sanderson & Meyer, 2008, p5). This again ties in well with the ethics of the study as well as minimizing any chance of investigator bias (Kuper et al, 2008). Conclusion Whilst there are limitations of this study and of qualitative research (Carr, 1994), the study has been peer-reviewed and deemed applicable and informative with regards to putting the elderly in care-assisted living facilities. The research clearly sets out aims and achieves these in general, and the researchers clearly state the weaknesses of the study and warn against any issues with generalizability. This is often a problem for qualitative research and the resultant small study sizes, but in this case allowing the reader to know the weaknesses adds credibility to the study. In general, most of the weaknesses of this study are those applicable to all qualitative data collection and therefore could not be avoided whilst gaining the in-depth responses seen here that were necessary for proper investigation of the topic. There are areas which could be improved, but the general impression is professional and informative. Works Cited Carr, L. T. (1994). The strengths and weaknesses of quantitative and qualitative research: what method for nursing? Journal of Advanced Nursing, 20(4), 716-721. Holloway, I., & Wheeler, S. (2009). Qualitative research in nursing and healthcare. Wiley-Blackwell. Kuper, A., Lingard, L., & Levinson, W. (2008). Critically appraising qualitative research. BMJ, 337, a1035-a1035. doi:10.1136/bmj.a1035 Sandelowski, M. (1986). The problem of rigor in qualitative research. Advances in nursing science. Streubert, H. J., & Carpenter, D. R. (1999). Qualitative research in nursing: Advancing the humanistic imperative. Lippincott Philadelphia. Thorne, S., Kirkham, S. R., & MacDonald-Emes, J. (1997). Interpretive description: A noncategorical qualitative alternative for developing nursing knowledge. Research in Nursing & Health, 20(2), 169–177. Read More