Research Process To Problems In Health Care Research Paper Example

Abstract.

Teenage pregnancies and abortion increased rates compared to other developed nations, remain a major public health concern in the United States. There have been initiatives by government agencies like CDC and the Department of Public Health in the reduction of pregnancy rates in women and girls between 15 to 19 years. However, information from the National Center for Health Statistics indicate that more than 600000 teenagers become pregnant every year (Secura et al., 2014). Approximately one-third of teenagers become pregnant before they reach the age of twenty. Hispanic and black teenagers are the most affected with two-fifths of the teenagers becoming pregnant before they reach twenty years. The cost of Teenage pregnancies to the government is in the tunes of ten of billion of dollars annually. The use of contraceptives promises to serve as a crucial intervention that can contain the increasing cases of teenage pregnancies and abortions. However, the high price of contraceptive has rendered their use limited to only a few teenagers. This paper discusses a study that was conducted to determine the effect of high cost of contraceptives and the availability of different birth control methods on the increase in number of teenage pregnancies. The results, methods and conclusion used in the research are discussed. The study aims to demonstrate that a reduction in the cost of contraceptives translates to reduced rates of teenage pregnancies and abortion.

Results

Part 1
The goal of this study was to determine whether the reason for increased teenage pregnancies was the elevated cost of contraception or not. The study is conducted in St. Louis area where 9256 girls and women between the ages of 14 and 45 were studied. The technique employed was appropriate because the study involved a control and experimental group. As such, the investigator had to observe the subjects from time to time because the subjects had to be familiarized with the use of LARC methods to encourage a decrease in unplanned pregnancies.
The requirement that the subjects must be attending specific clinics or residing in St. Louis is appropriate since it enables easy follow-up of recruited subjects. There is also the requirement that the subjects must be sexually active or intend to be in the next six months. In addition, the subjects should not intend to be pregnant in the next year. These requirements are to enable the investigator to correctly capture the number of unplanned pregnancies and the effectiveness of the method of reducing unintended pregnancies.

Part 2

The subjects had to sign informed consents and these documents are an agreement between the investigator and the subjects that the information provided is correct and should be treated with utmost confidentiality (Creswell & Clark, 2007). Furthermore, signing of informed consent by the researcher indicates that the information collected will only be used for research purposes. The subject will have to retain a copy of the consent in case the researcher violates the agreement. In cases where the age of the subject did not permit this a guardian or parent signed the consent.

Part 3

The data collection tools ensured the validity and reliability of the results because the subjects were followed up for two to three years and pregnancies recorded. The data collected was compared to national statistics and as such the tools used in the data collection were appropriately structured so that the information collected could be easily compared to the national statistics.

Data analysis procedures.

Part 1
The data analysis procedure was appropriate because the data collected involved pregnancies and as such the data collection procedure had to be timed in a way that this information could be captured and the state of birth whether there were live births or induced abortions. The study spanned a long period of time and as such frequent follow-up interviews were made in that relevant demographic information was captured.
The data analysis procedure used was appropriate for answering the research question as the data collected included the socio-economic status of the subjects. The data analysis also included the demographic characteristics of the subjects and the method of contraception that they preferred (Mays & Pope, 2000). This way comparison between the contraception used and the racial characteristics of the subjects can easily be made. The availability of national statistics on the contraception and unplanned pregnancies enables the comparison of study results and possible formulation of hypothesis whether the results found are comparable with national statistics.

Part 3

Qualitative data are data that capture information that cannot be measured, for instance the gender of a subject can either be male or female and this data is qualitative because there is no quantifiable value that has been assigned to the category male or female. Quantitative data is data that can be assigned values for instance the age, height or the percentage of marks scored in a physics class. These values enable comparison between subjects and the difference between the values of two subjects can easily be quantified. The study used a mixed study approach that is a combination of qualitative and quantitative study design to prove the hypothesis. The researcher utilized quantitative data methods such as chi-square test (Yin, 2003).

Conclusion

Part 1
The study established that the birth and abortion rates were comparatively reduced among teenage women and girls who were recruited to the project. The reduced rate of pregnancy was attributed to the eliminated financial and information on contraception that was preventing teenagers from accessing contraception. Classification based on age and race that are factors that are associated with increased sexual behavior and pregnancy indicate that both Hispanic and black subjects between the ages of 18 and 19 years were prone to these behaviors.
Part 2
The strength of the study is the fact that it appropriately captured the relevant information through the collection of relevant demographic information that could be compared with national statistics. The fact also that follow-up interviews were conducted over a span of three years also indicate a commitment by the researchers. The compensation of subjects acted as an incentive to the subjects to willingly provide the required information despite the fact that the information collected was detailed. The sample was also large enough and this good because the chances of it containing the characteristic of interest in the population is higher.

Part 3

There were limitations in the study that included the method that was used in the selection of the subjects. The subjects were selected through referrals from medics and word of mouth and as such the sample obtained cannot be considered to be random. This limits the statistical analysis tools that can be applied to the data and it also limits the use of the results obtained to make inference on the population from that the sample was obtained from. There is also the fact that the socioeconomic status of the individual could not be directly established and as such the limitations of the individual to obtain contraception based on lack of finances could not easily be determined (Secura et al, 2014).

Findings

The findings of the study does support the hypothesis postulated as indicated by the results of the research. The researcher in the study managed to reduce the pregnancy and abortion rate in the control group by 35% to a figure of 19.4 per 1000 teen within two to three years. These findings indicate that if the government and the relevant stakeholders reduced the cost of contraceptives and ensure the availability of information on birth control methods, the rates of pregnancy and abortion could be considerably reduced.

References

Creswell, J. W., & Clark, V. L. P. (2007). Designing and conducting mixed methods research. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 31(4), 388–389.
Mays, N., & Pope, C. (2000). Qualitative research in health care: Assessing quality in qualitative research. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 320(7226), 50.
Secura, M., Madden, T., McNicholas, C., Mullersman, J., Buckel, C., Zhao, Q., &Peipert, J. (2014). Provision of No-Cost, Long-Acting Contraception and Teenage Pregnancy. The New England Journal of Medicine, 371 (14).
Yin, R. K. (2003). Case study research: Design and methods. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications.