Article Critique



Article Critique

Theoretical Framework

The article that is considered for the purpose of critical analysis is a complete study. This study provides handful of knowledge. As far as the theoretical framework is concerned the article describes the conceptual framework but not in a greater extent or in great details. The discussion about the conceptual framework is not that much short that it distracts the significance of the research. The two main points that are the objective of the research are well established and identified. Author of the study also provides information about these two main points. One can easily observe the natural flow between the conceptual framework and the objective of the research paper. For instance:

“The two objectives of the research are to explore the learning needs of patients with COPD and the second objective is to explore the preferred learning style of the patients with COPD (Carlson et al, 2005)”.

So, the authors first give a brief description about the disease then they provide the prevalence and percentage of deaths that are occurred in United States as a result of this disease and then talk about this problem can be dealt if patients with COPD have enough information about the self management to control the disease.

In the research writers write “COPD is progressive and incurable, therefore management is aimed at controlling symptoms and slowing the progression of disease”.

After that the two research objectives are defined. This is truly linked and close to each other and the topics is not haphazard and they are not least connected.

Protection of Human Subject

The content of the article does not show that the research was conducted in accordance to the rules of some specific independent ethics review board or committee. The only part that mentions that approval of some authority is the methodology part in which author has mentioned that they got the questionnaire approved from an institutional review board (Carlson et al, 2005). Despite that, there are no ethical issues that one can point out in this study. The participants of the study were asked to sign a paper to show their consent that they are participating in the research on their will and not by force.

The paper mentions “Patients included in the survey were age 18 years or older; acknowledge they had been diagnosed with COPD, could speak English; were able to complete the survey; and were willing to sign a consent form and complete the written survey”.

Moreover, the participants who were recruited for the purpose of this study can be traced and can be contacted. The researchers select the participants from institution pulmonologist clinics (Carlson et al, 2005). There are things that the researchers could mention. For instance, the researchers mention that the participants were recruited over the period of six months they could also mention the year in which they recruited the participants. This can be a critical factor if they some ethics review authority wants to contact the participants for the validity of the research ...