Why Are We Testing 120 People?

A total of 59 participants took part in this experiment. They were split into two independent experimental groups, one being the control group, and the other the experimental group. There were 30 participants in the control group, and 29 participants in the experimental group. The male to female ratio was fairly equal with

Describe the experimental method, state its advantages and disadvantages, and distinguish between independent and dependent variables.

Describe the experimental method, state its advantages and disadvantages, and distinguish between independent and dependent variables.

The ratings for this scale vary from no pain, a zero, to the worst pain one could possibly endure, a ten ('Misha' Backonja & Farrar, 2015).  This type of tool used for measuring pain is considered a self-assessment.  Meaning, the individual rates his/her pain on the provided scale.  All individuals who have received medical treatment, whether for a serious injury or a yearly physical, has been asked, “What would you rate your pain today, on a scale of one to ten?”.  This pain assessment tool is considered a fully ordered variable due to the individual having a wide range to rate his/her

They were 67 participants in study 1 and they were students from the Princeton University subject pool, there was an equal amount of men and women in the study and 1 unknown. Also, 2 of the participants were excluded from the study, 1 because he was already exposed to the experiment material and the other

Gender – whether there was a difference in performance between genders; used for comparison between male and female participants

Three different measurements were taken before and after the study. They included, pain intensity, disability, and quality of life. Pain was taken using a visual analog scale (VAS) which ranges from 0 to 10; 0 equaling no pain at all and 10 equaling the worst pain ever felt. Disability was taken using the Neck Disability Index (NDI). The NDI consisted of 10 items and were scored using percentages, the higher the percentage the higher the disability. And lastly, quality of life was taken using the Medical Outcome Study Short-Form 36 Health Survey (SF-36). Scores in SF-36 ranged from 0 to 100 and the higher the patients number got, the better quality of life.

The subjects of the experimental study performed were 14 firefighters who were attendees at the Fire Academy. They were all volunteers and met the requirements to be subjects, including having no medical issues that could affect or be affected by the test and being in good physical health with no injuries. Each subject was cleared by physicians to be participants in the experiment and all agreed for information about the study to be released.

The strengths of the study is that is cost effective and does not require a lot of funding. Another strength is that George Mason University has a very diverse population, thus there is a high chance of obtaining a racially and culturally diverse group when randomly selecting the participants. Furthermore, the study also included staff and not only student in order to diversify the participant’s backgrounds as well. In addition, having both female and male participant’s makes it more diverse opposed to how many other studies that have solely focused on one gender. Although the study has many strengths, there are also some limitation to take note of. One of the major limitations is that the study is working with a very small sample size. In

(REARDON, ANGER & SZUMITA, 2015.). There are two ways to assess pain which they have been used for long time. The first way is Visual analog Scale. The second way is Numeric Rating Scale which means patient should rate their pain in scale of (0-10) zero is no pain and 10 is the worst pain. REARDON, D. P., ANGER, K. E., & SZUMITA, P. M. (2015). However, “the nurse also judged patiens’ pain based on their appearance and mobility, and investigated any potential complications by conducting physical examination. The nurses often rechecked the pain levels in order to clarify and ensure that the recorded pain levels corresponded to the causes of the pain and suffering” (Chatchumni, Namvongprom, Eriksson, & Mazaheri, 2016) patients also may report no improvement for their pain even though with high dose of opioid and ask for high dose of opioid while the nurses noticed them sleeping or

The participants recorded their pain during activity using the numerical rating scale (NRS) during the initial examination. The participants received three IASTM treatments a week

Although NRS-11 pain measures are technically classified as ordinal measures, most studies using NRS-11 as an outcome measure utilize parametric tests and consider the measures as interval or ratio data rather than ordinal measures.27 Therefore, assuming homogenous variance and a normal distribution, a parametric 2-tailed mixed-ANCOVA will be used as the primary statistical analysis. Prior to

One way that the study could have been improved is by increasing the number of human participants. Including more participants allows for the results to be generalized because I higher number of participants generally equates to the sample being more diverse (various races, genders, socioeconomic status, etc.). The study had male and female undergraduate students, and they were sampled from just one university. Therefor, if the study had sampled from a few universities, from a few different countries the results would be more generalizable. Meaning that the study's results would be more representative of the whole population rather than just a single

The participants of clearly the individuals from three separate cohorts, however the researchers do no specify if all individuals in each of the three cohorts are sampled or if only a portion of them participated in the research. This is an important issue that needs to be addressed by the researchers, although the number and sex of participants from each cohort is reported, the differences in sampling selections could present a significant difference in the conclusions obtained from the research data.

Pain cannot be measured by anyone other than the patient that is having the experience. This is why pain is sometime not understood and misevaluated by healthcare workers. Pain is measured by the Visual analog scale (VAS) of 1-10. One being the least amount of pain and ten being the worst possible. This test is done every four hours and reviewed 30 minutes after a medication administration for pain control. This non-invasive test gives the healthcare worker a measurable idea of the intensity of the pain the patient is experiencing. This also gives the health care worker a perceptive of how well the patient responds to pain after medication administration. Pain is not always seen it can be an eternal feeling.