Relationship between Alcohol Anonymous and Alcohol Addicted Patients - Research Proposal Example

? Relationship between Alcohol Anonymous and Alcohol Addicted Patients School: Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) was founded in 1935. AA is aninternational mutual aid association whose main objective is to encourage the people to stay sober while encouraging the alcoholics to achieve sobriety. Ideally, the consumption of alcohol is categorized into various trends. First, binge drinking results in rise of blood alcohol concentration to 0.08 percent or more. Ideally, binge drinking is linked to taking about five or more bottles for men or four or more bottles for women on a single occasion. Second, heavy drinking is regarded as taking two bottles or more on daily basis for men or one bottle on daily basis for women. The intake of alcohol is known dissimilar effects on individuals depending on age, gender, health status and diet among others. Further, moderate drinking is associated with drinking a maximum of two bottles for men or one bottle of alcohol for women on daily basis. Nonetheless, there are certain categories of people who are disallowed from drinking such as pregnant women, people on medication, under age and people operating machineries. The objective of this research study is to examine the relationship between AA addicted patients who attend AA meeting as compared to those that do not attend the meetings. This research study will concentrate on the AA group through a randomized trial. The trial will be performed and participants’ behavior will be tracked for a period of 6 months to one year. The information generated will be analyzed to examine whether there is a link between AA attendances. This link will include a P-value less than 0.05 and a confidence interval of 95% and the corresponding relative risk. Introduction Over 2 million people aged 12 or older in the U.S. received treatment for an alcohol problem in 2009 (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2010). Alcohol, ethyl alcohol and ethanol are intoxicating substances that depress the central nervous system and has effects on the functioning of the body. The effects depend on the quantity and number of times taken. When taken, they act as stimulants in the body and may affect the rate of alertness on an individual. Researchers have pointed out that alcohol use is risky to the health of individual causing ailments such as cancer, heart diseases, pregnancy-related complications, headache among others. Alcohol is a drug that is common and taken by many people nationally and globally. Drinking alcohol problems has been attributed to risk factors such as steady drinking on a regular basis, social and cultural factors. According to CDC, between 2001 and 2005, about 1729 deaths due to excessive drinking were recorded in Virginia. Out of this number, about 1260 were male while 469 were female. Over the same period, the number of deaths due to excessive recorded in the US was 57,852 of which 57,852 were male while 22,522 were female (Curran, 2008) Critical Analysis Kingree and Thompson (2011) examine association between two types of AA participation namely: meeting attendance and having a sponsor. This study recruited 268 participants from three treatments programs in South Carolina. Although the authors did not provide a conclusion nor confidence interval nor relative risk for this study, the main finding that is interesting is that P-value was use to provide analysis to explain that abstinence from alcohol is significant. Nonetheless, the article did not have conclusion and other necessary closing remarks that are crucial for the readers and future research. Kell Et al (2011) examine the relationship among AA; spirituality/religiousness and alcohol use found that AA leads to better alcohol use outcomes, by enhancing spiritual practices. This study collected 952 males and 774 female and followed for 15 months. This study was conducted in a randomized control trial Caucasian man. Also, P- value was providing for data analysis, but no relative risk or confidence interval was given. Several studies tried to explain the relationship between AA and alcohol addicted patients. Lee study used a case control study and found out that patient that attend AA meetings have better social network. (Abstinence from alcohol has increased). He found an Odds Ratio of 1:85 but did not provide a confidence interval. This clearly showed that AA was mostly associated with alcohol addicted patients. Limitations of these studies include data collection, lack of data for previous years, selection of one gender or one race. This concern (Limitations) can be eliminated further through proper planning and the development of more comprehensive strategies coupled with high ethical standards. The established healthcare guidelines should help health professionals acquire and maintain skills related to victim’s care, and it should encourage organizations to cultivate a culture of creating awareness on the effects of alcohol. l. It is advisable that people should be active in their healthcare and always seek information from the physician on possible risk factors. There should be a systems approach comprising of multiple strategies to undertake this challenge. This will prevent the continuous alcohol abuse and suffering on the victims (Rose & Cherpitel, 2011). After the study on this relationship, it was found to be true that AA was normally related to alcohol addicted patients. From the data collected, analysis and the interpretation of the p.value, this hypothesis was confirmed to be true. . The established healthcare guidelines should help health professionals acquire and maintain skills related to victim’s care, and it should encourage organizations to cultivate a culture of creating awareness on the effects of alcohol. l. It is advisable that people should be active in their healthcare and always seek information from the physician on possible risk factors. Study Design and Methods A probability sampling will be used for this study. Four AA groups will be selected randomly. Each AA group will have 25 participants. 100 non AA candidates will be randomly selected. The proposed cohort will be used in selecting participations. It will include all gender, race and age groups. The duration, in terms of the intervals between each study, has not yet been fully set. I will choose between 3, 6, 9, 12, or 15 months intervals to conduct the study. I have prepared a simple questionnaire for the purposes of collecting data. I will hand them out to people but I will assist the ones who will have problems reading the questionnaire. Question Response Race Age Alcohol consumption rate (monthly) Other drugs taken Reasons for taking alcohol Gender The whole data was collected from all participants. I would say we had a great amount of data collected. We summed up all questionnaires and compared the data collected. We had various answers but we were in a position to pick the similar ones. Alcoholism is a major factor mainly affecting the youths and young adults. In some areas, it affects older people and the jobless. Alcoholism has made people to be poor because once the alcoholic receives any amount of money they tend to us it on alcohol first. Domestic fights are also a huge problem to families that have an alcoholic father or son. They have unstable anger issues and tend to mainly complain on anything and everything around them. In cases where the mother is the drunkard, children suffer more because there’s no one to help the children and as a result the children have low self esteem and become secluded. The average consumption rate was 10 liters per month. In some families, the alcoholics also used marijuana, scientific name for it is cannabis, is used. Some use cocaine and heroin. They say it adds value to the alcohol and up lifts their spirit and energy. I have come to the conclusion that this is an effective method, that can be used in phenomenological research projects to help make informed decisions as well as reduce errors in judgment (Richardson, Swan, & McInnis-Bowers, 1994). It helped to keep the procedures to be used in a major assignment for a larger population sample, propose changes in the bigger assignment, and check anomalies that may arise in the course of the research as well as help in getting reliable and valid results. This is particularly necessary for large quantitative studies since it helps in time, risk and resource management. Discussion Management of alcoholism starts when the affected individual accepts the fact that he/she has a challenge and is willing to stop the behavior. There are various recommended cycles in the treatment of alcoholism. Some medicine’s reactions are distinct and irregular on certain people depending on factors such as age and gender (Brown & Yalom, 1995). Nonetheless, the higher percentages consist of events from identifiable pharmacological effects and are avoidable. The individual requires counseling and regular check-ups as a way of maintaining sobriety. This makes the individual cope with the new body condition and reduces his/her urge to take alcohol. Regular Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) sessions and getting a supporter are identified as crucial to help individuals struggling in alcoholism (Klingemann, Takala, & Hunt, 1992). Procedure bias is experienced when the participants are pressurized to answer questions or provide information. Most of these biases can be reduced with good preparation on materials, purpose and the procedure to be used. This may involve observing some ethics by participants, using volunteers and moderators. The moderator should never give opinions, express intimidation or ask biased questions while carrying out the interview. The respondents should avoid giving conflicting or biased answers and overstating opinions. Random sampling of the participants help in generating a representative sample since every member has a known probability of being selected and the selection is based on possibilities. This process protects against the use of unrepresentative samples (Martin, 2000). Some researchers point out that a good number of effects ensuing from conventional treatment are related to drug dosage, predictable, and avertable if the practitioners have adequate data on the victim’s alcohol history. Strengths and Limitations This study will provide 95% confidence interval association measure (relative risk) and will be used as a reference in further studies. It will also influence the public and agencies in the implementation of AA. The study also has some limitations such as bias, confounders that cannot be controlled such as social and culture factors. On the other hand, sample size sample selection bias and participants may drop out of the study. Ethical Issues Prior to the study, consent should be obtained where or not participants are willing to participate in the study because they may feel that there an invasion of privacy to their social life. Moreover, the sample population should involve people across board within various occupations. The trend on the uptake of alcohol substances should put into consideration factors such as culture and living standards (Kothari, 2005). The research study on alcoholism invokes ethical regarding people refraining from giving credible information that can help the researchers in their study. Potential Public Health Significance Further research on the relationship between alcohol anonymous and alcohol addicted patients is required that should put more emphasis on the related complications. This should involve health professionals to help in coming up with elaborate data that can be used to come up with strategies to be used by the population. Additionally, the policy makers should also seek to establish more safe alternatives that help to check on such effects in the population. This is because even with an effective change in the community such changes are communicated; it would have big impact on their relationship between alcohol anonymous and alcohol addicted patients. The researcher should ask follow-up questions, clarifications and in different approaches to avoid getting misleading information Conclusion Relationship between alcohol anonymous and alcohol-addicted patients reveals that there should be elaborate public health mechanisms that should involve public and home-based care to offer care for those struggling with alcohol. Alcoholism is a condition that is avoidable when rightful measures are advised and interventions done at the appropriate time. Longer time of abstinence, minimal uses of alcohol, better health routine and better social support are imperative in treating alcoholism. An elaborate system for the early recognition of alcoholism behavior should lay emphasis on high-risk victims with a long history of alcohol use. This makes it easier for the doctors to offer the rightful care on the victims at the appropriate time. The approach assists the clinical professionals in facilitating the regular medication reviews on the victim. 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