Severe PMS The purpose of this paper is to pr

Taylor, D.L. (1994). Evaluating therapeutic change in symptom severity at the level of the individual women experiencing severe PMS. IMAGE: Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 26(1), 25-32.

The critique includes analysis and evaluation of the study's abstract, supporting background documentation, and design and methodology. A redesign of two major problems with the study is also provided.

The abstract included the problem statement, methods of data collection, findings and conclusions. A specific statement of purpose was not provided which was unfortunate as it could have been used to establish the clinical significance of the study. However, the abstract read well and appeared relatively informative.

The clinical applications of the study were delineated briefly although not directly tied-in with specific nursing practices. However, the brief treatment given the clinical significance of the variables and findings failed to make the study as meaningful for nursing practice as might have been obtained if a bit more of the discussion had been provided. Literature Review

The presented review defined PMS and its symptoms as they related to the study's dependent measure thereby providing clarity and technical specificity. It also offered a justification for the use of a time-series design. The logic seemed r

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of the design seems adequate. However, there is one important point that needs to be discussed. Taylor (1994) states that the use of multiple measures, as well as planning for a stable baseline of data collection through control of extraneous factors ensured the internal validity of the study. This may not be the case. First, history effects can still occur to one or more individuals unless Taylor would have us believe that each and every possible extraneous factor was controlled for. Also, it is possible that the mere attention given to the woman by the researcher produced findings and not the therapeutic intervention. A control group should have been used in which women received only attention by the researcher (discussion, filling out forms) but not the treatment. Baseline and post-treatment comparisons between experimental and control groups would have allowed for the assessment of possible attention or history effects. While these comparisons might not have been relevant to the symptom severity therapeutic response patterns, they are nonetheless relevant to the study's internal validity. Methods of Data Collection and Instruments Used Following sampling procedures (described in the next section of this paper),
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Explanations Findings, Study Design, Population Sample, Nursing Scholarship, Research Questions, Literature Review, Ethics Informed, Nursing Practice, Strategy Baseline, List MSSL, symptom severity, individual patterns, therapeutic response, severe pms, series design, research questions, patterns symptom severity, patterns symptom, data collection, symptom severity patterns, common clusters, baseline data, protect subjects' rights, common clusters women, patterns therapeutic response,
Approximate Word count = 1225
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)