Boatright, Holcomb, and Replogle (2015) sought to investigate whether providers were following the 2004 American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP) treatment guidelines when treating children with acute otitis media in an article, Treatment Patterns for Pediatric Acute Otitis Media: A Gap in Evidence- Based Theory and Clinical Practice. Their study concluded that providers were overprescribing antibiotics for mild to moderate acute otitis media in children between the ages of six months and twelve years of age (Boatright et al., 2015). The authors believed that following the 2004 AAP guidelines were the best research practices. The guidelines recommend watchful waiting for patients between the ages of six months to two years with mild to moderate …show more content…
acute otitis media or an uncertain diagnosis of acute otitis media (Boatright et al., 2015).
If the child is greater than two years of age, then the guidelines recommend watchful waiting with mild to moderate acute otitis media (Boatright et al., 2015). Antibiotic treatment is only recommended with severe acute otitis media or if the child is under the age of six months with a certain or uncertain diagnosis of acute otitis media (Boatright et al., 2015). The researchers preformed the data analysis rather well. They noted descriptive statistics such as the type of health care provider, the gender of the patients, the ethnicity of the patients, the insurance carrier of the patients, the patients’ daycare attendance status, and the patients’ presence of specific symptoms (Boatright et al., 2015). Descriptive statistics remain useful because they display characteristics of the sample and may describe the study’s variables (Cipher, 2017a). These statistics were displayed in a frequency table, which allowed for easy interpretation of data. The researchers also reported the statistics related to different variables in their study and whether the finding was statistically significant. They noted that statistical significance was found by utilizing a t-test. A t-test utilizes two group or sample means to determine if a statistical
difference between the groups is present (Cipher, 2017b). The t-test was utilized for the variables of otalgia, irritability, mean age (months), and health care provider (Boatright et al., 2015). The researchers also utilized a Chi-square analysis to determine if a relationship existed between the treatment provided and the type of health care provider, but no relationship was noted (Boatright et al., 2015). Chi-square analysis was also utilized to determine if statistical significance existed between the presence or absence of symptoms such as bulging of the tympanic membrane, effusions, erythematous, and otalgia with and without antibiotic treatment (Boatright et al., 2015). All of these findings were displayed in easily interpreted tables. I thought that the researchers displayed the data analysis within the frequency tables and other tables well, so that the reader may easily interpret the findings. Furthermore, the authors clearly stated the statistical analyses that were utilized and whether relationships or statistical significances were found. The authors did not note any measures of central tendency, except for the mean age of the children, and they did not note deviations in the data. I believe that doing so may have strengthened their data analysis.
The final chapter of this book encourages people to be critical when taking in statistics. Someone taking a critical approach to statistics tries assessing statistics by asking questions and researching the origins of a statistic when that information is not provided. The book ends by encouraging readers to know the limitations of statistics and understand how statistics are
Otitis externa is diagnosed by a culture taken from the ear canal. Once the diagnosis is made, treatment begins with, antibiotics or steroid drops. These drugs are used are used to treat the inflammation in the ear. This condition is very painful, because of the inflammation and swelling of the auditory canal. Patients may also complain of hearing loss and purulent (pus like) drainage from the ear. To cure the condition and not have it return patients must keep the ear canal clean and dry of the condition will continue and becomes a chronic condition.
Friedman JF, Lee GM, Kleinman KP, Finkelstein JA. "Acute Care and Antibiotic Seeking for Upper Respiratory Tract Infections for Children in Day Care: Parental Knowledge and Day Care Center Policies." JAMA Pediatrics 157.4 (2003): 369-374. .
According to USA Today, U.S. doctors are prescribing enough antibiotics to give to 4 out of 5 Americans every year, an alarming pace that suggests they are being excruciatingly overused. In fact, Dr. Aunna Pourang from MD states, “to give you an idea of how high the pressure is to prescribe antibiotics, I didn’t get a job once because during the interview I told the lead physician that I only prescribe antibiotic prescriptions when they are warranted.” The development and widespread obsession of antibiotics, or drugs that kill bacteria and thereby reduce infection, has helped billions of people live longer, healthier lives. Unfortunately, the more we rely on and abuse antibiotics, the more bacteria develop resistance to them, which makes treating infections that much more challenging and leads to the growth of drug-resistant strains of bacteria. Research from the Center of Disease Control found that two million people in the United States become infected with antibiotic resistant bacteria, while 23,000 people die from such infections each year. Americans often aren’t informed on the power of the human body and rush to assumptions when perfection isn’t present. In a nutshell, the obsession of antibiotics is quite deadly and needs to be addressed before it’s too
Describe the differences in the results between the groups in the study and support your description with examples from the study
Otitis Media (OM) is a common middle ear infection that occurs from a build up of fluid within the middle ear (Williams, 2003). This build up of fluid, or pus, is caused by a viral or bacterial infection within the middle ear (Williams, 2003). It is a common disease in childhood that can affect children and infants from as young as 6 weeks of age (Williams, 2003). Some symptoms include redness and inflammation within the ear canal, a bulging tympanic membrane, earaches, loss of hearing, and even nausea, dizziness and vomiting (Williams, 2003; Rural Health Education Foundation, 2014). As young children who develop the infection may not be able to communicate that their ears are sore, they will instead try and relieve this
The article cites very little of the actual facts of the study making the claims harder to accept and more susceptible to critique. The study itself seems to have overlooked some added external effects and made some assumptions critical to the issue. One factor discussed in class is the size of the study and the people comprising the study. The study size is a decent study size of 37,000. However, the study does not specify some serious factors, such as family size, the structure of the family, the age of the participants and how long the study followed children.
Historically, pediatric drugs have been used without the adequate research done for pediatric formulation and dosage information for children usage. There have been difficulties and lack of pediatric trials done on drugs and children received unapproved therapeutic uses based on adult formulation, which have caused harmful results in children. There is a profound need for pharmaceutical tests to be approved for safety and effective for use by children. Only few drugs have adequate labeling information and approved indication for dosage, frequency, and route of administration. However, over the recent years, implementation of pediatric regulations and legislations have been initiated and review committees have been established to renew this issue.
The development of knowledge requires a number of processes in order to establish credible data to ensure the validity and appropriateness of how it can be used in the future. For the healthcare industry, this has provided the ability to create and form new types of interventions in order to give adequate care across a of number of fields within the system. Research then, has been an essential part in providing definitive data, either by disproving previous beliefs or confirming newly found data and methods. Moreover, research in itself contains its own process with a methodological approach. Of the notable methods, quantitative research is often used for its systemic approach (Polit & Beck, 2006). Thus, the use of the scientific method is used, which also utilizes the use of numerical data (Polit & Beck). Here, researches make use of creating surveys, scales, or placing a numerical value on it subjects (Polit & Beck). In the end the resulting data is neutral and statistical. However, like all things its approach is not perfect, yet, it has the ability to yield valuable data.
What if there were no treatment for strep throat? Or pneumonia? Or sinus infections? It is hard to imagine life without medicine for these illnesses. But what if the antibiotics used to treat bacterial infections such as strep throat and pneumonia stopped working? What if the bacteria were stronger than the antibiotics? The threat of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections is an increasing concern for healthcare providers, and it is important to reduce the misuse and overuse of antibiotics to maintain control of bacterial diseases.
care for patients. In addition, the study will determine the factor of income and the burden of
The father of quantitative analysis, Rene Descartes, thought that in order to know and understand something, you have to measure it (Kover, 2008). Quantitative research has two main types of sampling used, probabilistic and purposive. Probabilistic sampling is when there is equal chance of anyone within the studied population to be included. Purposive sampling is used when some benchmarks are used to replace the discrepancy among errors. The primary collection of data is from tests or standardized questionnaires, structured interviews, and closed-ended observational protocols. The secondary means for data collection includes official documents. In this study, the data is analyzed to test one or more expressed hypotheses. Descriptive and inferential analyses are the two types of data analysis used and advance from descriptive to inferential. The next step in the process is data interpretation, and the goal is to give meaning to the results in regards to the hypothesis the theory was derived from. Data interpretation techniques used are generalization, theory-driven, and interpretation of theory (Gelo, Braakmann, Benetka, 2008). The discussion should bring together findings and put them into context of the framework, guiding the study (Black, Gray, Airasain, Hector, Hopkins, Nenty, Ouyang, n.d.). The discussion should include an interpretation of the results; descriptions of themes, trends, and relationships; meanings of the results, and the limitations of the study. In the conclusion, one wants to end the study by providing a synopsis and final comments. It should include a summary of findings, recommendations, and future research (Black, Gray, Airasain, Hector, Hopkins, Nenty, Ouyang, n.d.). Deductive reasoning is used in studies...
“Quantitative research guides health care decision makers with statistics--numerical data collected from measurements or observation that describe the characteristics of specific population samples. Descriptive statistics summarize the utility, efficacy and costs of medical goods and services. Increasingly, health care organizations employ statistical analysis to measure their performance outcomes. Hospitals and other large provider service organizations implement data-driven, continuous quality improvement programs to maximize efficiency.” (Castro, 2012). Examples of quantitative research include; (Scerbo,2013)
In 2014, the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association published a study that measured the impact a clinical pharmacist had on the rates of vaccination errors in a pediatric primary care setting.3 The comparison clinic had no pharmacist on staff. At the first pediatric clinic the pharmacist was responsible for frequently reviewing patient charts and educating both the patients and providers. The study reported that over a 3 month period, the error rate was 0.28% at the pharmacist staffed clinic, compared to 2.7% at the comparison site.3 Furthermore, there were 132 patients at the comparison site that had a needed immunization overlooked, compared to just 46 patients that missed an immunization at the clinic where the pharmacist reviewed
There are many medical professionals who believe that the rise of antibiotic resistance is a result of the overuse and misuse of antibiotics. Dr. Jim Wilde, a paediatric emergency medicine physician at the Medical College of Georgia believes that the medical profession is losing the war against resistance...