Healthcare design and methods - Research Paper Example

Design and research methodsResearch results have shown that males develop schizophrenia at a younger age and have poor outcomes compared to females who develop schizophrenia. This suggests significance of gender and age on incidence of the disorder and quantitative methods, with survey design is proposed. DesignNon-experimental design will be implemented through survey. The approach has such advantages as cost effectiveness and simplicity that ensures implementation within a short period (Mitchell & Jolley, 2012).

The scope of the study also suggests suitability of survey because diagnosis of schizophrenia is based on observation of symptoms and availability of secondary data on incidence of the disorder (National Health Service, 2012).MethodsA sample of health care facilities would be the study’s participants. Stratified random sampling, based on geographical boundaries, would identify health facilities and all schizophrenia patients in selected facilities used (Denise & Beck, 2013). Observation of data from existing records will aid data collection from each facility.

Ethical and legal approvals would be sought from relevant authorities before collecting data from the selected facilities. SPSS software would then be used to organize the data by categories, compute frequencies by each category, and to investigate potential difference in proportions across comparative categories. Age and gender would be bases for categorization with male and female being categories for gender and age groups of adolescents, adults between 20 and 29 years, 30 and 39 years, 40 and 49 years and 50 and above years as age-based categories.

The analysis would focus on each stratum and then analyze consistency of results across strata. ReferencesDenise, P. & Beck, C. (2013). Essentials of nuring research: Appraising evidence for nursing practice. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Mitchell, M. & Jolley, J. (2012). Research design explained. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning. National Health Service. (2012). Schizophrenia. National Health Services. Retrieved from: http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Schizophrenia/Pages/Introduction.aspx.