Unit 4 Discussion 2 – Reviewing the Evidence

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Jan 9, 2024

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Unit 4 Discussion 2 – Reviewing the Evidence Locate a scholarly journal article and apply the steps of critical analysis found in your textbook. Post your analysis to this discussion board. To conduct a critical appraisal of an article, the elements of a study must first be identified. The next step defines the strengths and weaknesses of the study. Evaluation, the final step, examines the meaning, credibility, and trustworthiness of the study findings. While performing these steps, the authors, organization of the study, and the significance of the problem must be examined (Gray & Grove, 2017). In their 2019 article, van Dellen et al. evaluated a breastfeeding support program consisting of six lactation consults. The authors are associated with the University of Groningen and Hanze University in the Netherlands in the fields of psychology and applied sciences and declared no competing interests, payments, or rewards for the study. The article title is appropriate, and the abstract clearly defines the quasi-experimental study purpose, a brief background, methods, and results. The well-organized body of the article shows clarity in the significance of the problem, a summary of relevant studies, the study population, intervention, and variables, with a comprehensive list of references at the end. The evidence-based intervention examined in the study was founded on the well-known framework, the Theory of Planned Behavior, along with empirical research findings supporting long-term and effective breastfeeding support. The authors hypothesized that the breastfeeding support program would be effective and aimed to support best practices to improve breastfeeding exclusivity and duration (van Dellen et al., 2019). A quasi-experimental approach tends to yield quality results for testing intervention effectiveness. Women selected for participation were pregnant with one baby, planning to breastfeed, interested in participating, had access to the internet, and completed data for breastfeeding duration. All participants volunteered and provided informed consent. The Ethical Committee of Psychology approved the research. For this study, randomization was not the chosen method to allow women the choice to participate and avoid unwanted bias. The dependent variables were duration of breastfeeding, exclusive or any breastfeeding. A limitation existed among the study population since most of the women in the experimental group had a high level of education and planned to return to work with expectations of breastfeeding issues. Since there may be pre-existing differences between the control and experimental group, the authors attempted to overcome this weakness by thoroughly screening and controlling possible confounding factors (45 were identified), although it is not possible to control all potential

confounders. Creating more comparable groups strengthened the evidence of the results. Although the sample size was limited, the results for women who exclusively breastfed yielded significant results and supported the authors’ hypothesis (van Dellen et al., 2019). Evaluating the meaning, trustworthiness, and credibility of the study is the final step of critical analysis (Gray & Grove, 2017). Kaplan-Meier plots assessed breastfeeding survival in the control and program groups. To account for confounding variables, a Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was utilized. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software program analyzed all data. The significant health benefits from and potential consequences of not breastfeeding support the importance of this research study. The empirical findings imply the need for further research and practical implementation of interventions like the breastfeeding support program (van Dellen et al., 2019). For future studies, a broader population base of multiple hospitals or regions for sample selection may provide an opportunity to perform a randomized control trial. References Gray, J. R., & Grove, S. K. (2017). Critical appraisal of nursing studies. In J.R. Gray, S.K. Grove, & S. Sutherland (Eds.), Burns and Grove’s the practice of nursing research: Appraisal, synthesis, and generation of evidence (8 th ed., pp. 431-452). Elsevier. van Dellen, S. A., Wisse, B., Mobach, M. P., & Dijkstra, A. (2019). The effect of a breastfeeding support programme on breastfeeding duration and exclusivity: A quasi-experiment. BMC Public Health , 19 (1), 993. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-7331-y

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