Any help please?

[ilovemarkb]

I am really struggling critiquing three study's that were done on honey and wound healing. I have to find fault with how patients were randomized for the study's (randomized control trials) but I dont see any faults

Prior to randomization, the study research nurse assessed
patient eligibility and obtained written informed consent from
eligible patients. Allocation to treatment was determined
using blocked randomization (with sequences produced using
computer software (S TAT A S TATA version 8.2; StataCorp, College
Station, TX, USA) with randomly varying block sizes),
stratified by two factors, age (<40 and ‡40 years old) and
size of wound (<10 and ‡10 cm2). Stratification was used in
conjunction with blocked randomization to ensure a balanced
distribution of the stratifying factors across the two treatment
groups. Sealed, opaque, serially numbered envelopes were
produced from the randomization sequence for each stratum
separately, and an independent third party with access to the
envelopes was contacted by telephone to determine treatment
allocation as patients were recruited. Will be surprised if any abbers answer this!! Julie (head in hands) x

[wolf63]

Have you got anyone that you can actually talk it through with. Sometimes it starts to make sense when you say it out loud.

Luckily there are loads of clever people on AB - I know about cats which is usually no help to anyone. :-)

[ilovemarkb]

I haved e mailed my tutor but suspect they may not reply till monday. So desperate to get this done over the weekend!! thanks anyway wolf x

[cathfromsaron]

the plural of study is studies.

critiques can start with the budget, timescale or availability of subjects for the study, eg. if there were more money and more people ...

critiques can say what went well, and what took too much research time, plus what was unnecessary or over complicated too! if this study were to be replicated HOW would you explain to staff how to mirror the original study?

a good criticism can be 'how' the information was given to participants and whether that material can be improved, eg. were there any non-readers or blind people participating, if so how could they still participate ...

plus all the elements listed by you can be explained and given praise, a neutral response or constructive criticism in your answer ...

good luck x

[ilovemarkb]

Thank you cath! thanks for your feedback. So you would agree that there are no faults apparent with the way the patients were randomized?

[woofgang]

The only possible hitch that I can see is the original elegibility criteria? as applied by the research nurse?

[ilovemarkb]

Yes, good point, this may introduce some bias particularly as she was the study research nurse. So think I am correct in saying that this may threaten the internal validity!! oh my!! getting somewhere at last. THANKS

[woofgang]

you would need, i think to know more about the criteria that she applied and how stringently she applied them then maybe make some comment about whether or not any bias would have been eradicated by the following randomisation

[ilovemarkb]

thankyou woofgang x

[woofgang]

Been thinking about this over dinner because I am a boring sad person. Should there have been stratifications for gender and diagnosis as well, also maybe for ethnic origin?

[ilovemarkb]

been looking into this. They used far more females than males. They used 3 or 4 different wound types. Ive also found evidence that states stress can have a major impact on wound healing!! Searching my paper to see if any psychological assessments were done on patient's.. I seem to be in the "mode" now. Still another 1600 words to go !!! kind regards julie x

[woofgang]

go Julie!!!!!

[cathfromsaron]

ditto!

yes, i would say you can note that there are certain 'imbalances', and then discuss that you are unable to eradicate the race/gender balance (or whatever) due to poor patient take-up rates from other race/sex etc, or that they were unavailable to the study ...

good luck!