The Research Design Employed in the Article’ Abortion and mental health: quantitative synthesis and analysis of research published 1995–2009

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I selected the article’ Abortion and mental health’ for this assignment. It aims to measure the correlation between abortions and the indicators of adverse mental health. The researcher conducted a longitudinal survey because they intended to collect relevant data of their study sample at various times (Coleman, 2011). They wanted to determine changes in their respondents’ thinking processes, patterns, and behaviors. The researchers divided it into two phases since the research employed a longitudinal survey. The first phase facilitated primary quantitative search using polls where the respondents were subjected to open-ended questions. The second phase of the survey involved sending survey emails to respondents.

Relying on baseline observations and conclusions sometimes gives inaccurate results due to biases or external factors that may hinder the research. Internal and external validities can contribute to the inaccuracy of the findings of a study (Matsuo et al., 2022). Internal validities entail establishing confidence in a study’s conclusions by ruling out alternative explanations. On the other hand, external validities refer to how findings can be generalized or applicable in different settings (Chytilova & Maialeh, 2015). The three criteria used to establish cause-and-effect in internal validities include the same variation in cause and effect, the caused preceded effect in terms of time, and the absence of an alternative in the relationship observed.

In the article above, the researcher eliminated threats to validity by random selection, where participants were randomly selected to represent the population. They also used the study protocol, where the researcher used specific treatments and administration procedures to facilitate the research and randomization (Coleman, 2011). Participants were randomly assigned treatments and control groups hence eradicating systemic bias between groups. The researcher finalized by identifying the setbacks of his study. He observed longitudinal effects, cultural bias, and the measure used to collect data limited the study.

References

Chytilova, H., & Maialeh, R. (2015). Internal and external validity in experimental economics. World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, International Journal of Social, Behavioral, Educational, Economic, Business and Industrial Engineering, 9, 1944-1951.

Coleman, P. (2011). Abortion and mental health: Quantitative synthesis and analysis of research published 1995–2009. British Journal of Psychiatry, 199(3), 180-186. doi:10.1192/bjp.bp.110.077230

Matsuo, Y., Yamada, Y., Miyata, J., Aita, T., & Yoshioka, T. (2022). Importance of internal and external validity in clinical research: comment on the article by Fatima et al. Arthritis & Rheumatology, 74(1), 175-176.