ARTICLE CRITIQUE

Article Critique

Article Critique

Introduction

In today's fast paced world; much research is being conducted on different strategies applied for fall prevention amongst older people in an outpatient setting. These strategies can be grouped into single as well as multiple interventions (Haines, Bennel & Osborne, 2004, pp. 676-681). For in patients, the multiple intervention strategies involve a variety of risk factors including, risk identification, patient assessment, environmental factors like slippery floors, medication reviews, education of patients regarding the dangers of falls, extra assistance to high risk patient etc (Evans et al, 1998). Studies have targeted these intervention strategies for in patients at risk of falls in the hospital setting, which assessed the fall risk of patients and adjusted the number of interventions accordingly (Williams, 2007, pp 316-324). Many healthcare professionals prefer to take into consideration the limitations of these studies when considering the applications of fall prevention strategies outlined in the studies. They tend to utilise fall risk assessment measures which have not been tested for feasibility, reliability or validity.

Critical Analysis of the Article

Data Collection

The authors of the study “Using Targeted Risk Factor Reduction to prevent falls in older in-patients: a randomized Control Trial”; collected the falls and injury data on patients which was solely acquired from different hospitals. The validity of the study could have been improved if the researchers had used a diverse set of data. The data used in the study was quite convenient for the researchers to collect. They did not have to do any fieldwork for its collection.

The Health & Safety Department (H&S) whose data was used in the study only holds limited information. The data collection method used in the study serves as a major drawback of the study discussed in the paper.

Method Used in the Research

The study method applied in the article relied on “randomly defined control groups”. A pre-determined care plan was identified. If we thoroughly analyze the study, the use of a pre-determined plan limited the researchers' ability to draw inferences and to generalize the findings of the study. A variable plan and undefined group could have been used to generalize the outcome of the study to other populations.

Why Randomized Control Design was used

The researchers opted for a Randomized Control Design because it tends to eliminate the population biases present in the sample. Also, with respect to the goals of the study; randomized control designs are easier to develop. Most importantly, in the research article, use of a randomized control design allowed the researchers to thoroughly interpret and analyze the research findings. It is evident in the study that the randomized control design allowed controlling the external variables and interventions. Hence, it proved to be a good choice for the researchers.

The study by Healey et al in 2004 examines the consequences of targeted risk factor reduction in older patient wards of general hospitals. This study was based upon elderly patients from acute as well as sub acute hospital settings, which took place in 8 elderly ...