Clinical- Research Methods Flashcards
Describe longitudinal research
Longitudinal research takes place over a lona period, and often involves comparing a samole. group with their own performance over lime. This means that developmental or time-based changes can be seen through the patterns of measurements. For example, in mental health research, clinicians may be interested in monitoring changes in symptoms in a patient group undergoing a certain treatment. Measurements may be taken of how the symptoms present themselves over a time-period at certain intervals.
This method should allow psycholaists to see if there is any reduction in the symptoms to help
them to assess how effective the treatment is,
• Longitudinal research shows CHANGE
AND DEVELOPMENT
• Prospective longitudinal study: takes a group of participants and tracks changes over time, as they happen
• Retrospective longitudinal study: gets participants to look back over time at events that have already happened.
Strengths of longitudinal studies
•As the same people are used, participant variables are controlled for because we are testing the same group of people on different occasions.
•It is a reliable way to measure the effect of time on the behaviour studied. This enables clinicians to evaluate the effectiveness of treatments in terms of improving the quality of a patient’s life.
Limitations of longitudinal studies
The research must go on for a long period. This can lead to several issues:
* Participants may drop out reducing the sample size, so that the outcome may be less valid.
× Even though the same people are used in the study there may be many factors which will affect individuals’ development making it harder to draw conclusions.
* Longitudinal studies take a long time and can be expensive.
* By the time meaningful data can be used to draw conclusions in the study, the data may be irrelevant.
Summarise Meltzer (2004) longitudinal studies:
Meltzer (2004) A 6 week study that compared placebo, four new drugs, and haloperidol (an established drug). Found that haloperidol was better than placebo in improving both positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia. So the study showed change and development in treatment of schizophrenia
Summarise Sensky (2000) longitudinal studies:
Found that after 9 months Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is effective in treating negative as well as positive symptoms in schizophrenia that are resistant to standard antipsychotic drugs
Summarise POTS (2003) longitudinal studies:
Study compared the use of CBT with the use of sertraline in children with OCD Study lasted for 12 weeks; patients were assessed at weeks 4, 8 and12. Showed change and development in OCD symptoms over time
Evaluate the use of longitudinal research in clinical psychology (PEETCE Strength)
One strength of using longitudinal research in clinical psychology is that you can see change and development in symptoms.
• This is a strength as you can tell how well the treatment is working.
• For example, in Sensky’s research, after nine months patients showed improvement in their schizophrenia symptoms.
• Therefore, longitudinal research is useful for deciding whether or not to use a treatment.
• However, it is difficult to control all extraneous variables during a longitudinal study, meaning that the results may not be valid.
• For example, in Sensky’s research other factors, such as the level of social support available to the participants, may have influenced their improvement.
Practical Issues using the longitudinal method
Generalisability
• Longitudinal studies may not be generalisable if they suffer from participant attrition, where certain people drop out of the study
• They may also not be generalisable as factors in society may have changed between the start and end of the study.
Reliability
• Often low in reliability as impossible to control all extraneous variables over a long period of time. E.g., levels of social support in Sensky’s study.
Describe the use of cross-sectional methods
Cross-sectional methods are useful when researchers want to take a quick ‘snapshot’ of behaviour in a given population in a set period of time. Usually, a large group of people will be used in the sample. This enables a good ‘cross section’ to be studied from the whole target population. Conclusions can then be drawn from the data gathered. For example, researchers may want to know about the experience of people at different ages suffering from schizophrenia, so they might take a sample of participants of different ages to investigate at the same time.
Given an research example of cross-sectional methods
Lurhmann’s research can also be used as an example of cross-sectional research
• Auditory hallucinations were compared at the same time across three different groups of people with schizophrenia from USA, India and Ghana.
Strengths of cross-sectional methods
•Data is gathered quickly, so that conclusion can be drawn and acted on more rapidly.
•The results are more likely to be valid as they will be reported at the same time. when they have most application.
•A cross-sectional design can be economical because it requires less commitment in terms of time from a researcher compared to the longitudinal design.
Limitations of the cross-sectional method
× Cross-sectional designs are not good for finding out the cause of something like a mental disorder because they are descriptive research.
X Because the cross-sectional designs are a snapshot at one moment in time, they are unlikely to include any historical information about a patient, or information about the future
X There might be a cohort effect because the study looks at different people at the same moment in time and those people will belong to a different cohort.
For example, when studying different age groups suffering from OCD, not all age groups would have been exposed to the same social and environmental factors. This could change any study into the development of OCD.
Describe the use of cross-cultural methods
Cross-cultural research is carried out by researchers who want to compare some behaviour or attitude in different cultures.
So, they wish to look for similarities and differences between cultures. For example, there may be questions over whether the experience of patients suffering from schizophrenia is the same in different cultural groups, whether the same symptoms are shown in cultural groups, or whether treatments are equally effective across cultural groups.
Universality can be studied: if a result is found in many different cultures, perhaps this means it is in our nature.
NURTURE
NATURE
The researchers may not always gather data themselves from the different cultures; they may use data already gathered about one culture and compare it with data from another culture that looks at the same thing.
There may be many reasons why cross-cultural methods are relevant in clinical psychology. For example, there may be questions over whether the experience of patients suffering from schizophrenia is the same in different cultural groups; whether the same symptoms are shown in all cultural groups, or whether treatments are equally effective across cultural groups.
Strengths of cross-cultural methods
•By taking measurements in one cultural group, and comparing the same measurements taken in a different cultural group, it allows the researchers to gain an understanding of how culture plays a role in the validity and reliability of diagnoses in clinical psychology (see Luhrmann)
•Cross-cultural research can also identify elements of abnormal behaviour that can be attributed to purely biological factors. If the same symptoms and features are shown in different cultures, it is likely that they are due to biological factors rather than to social factors.
•Cross-cultural research can reduce the level of ethnocentrism in psychological studies and conclusions and can improve generalisability of psychological research.
•Cross-cultural methods aid clinicians’ understanding of the cultural factors that they should consider when diagnosing and treating patients from differing cultural groups, especially when the culture of the patient is different from their own
Limitations of cross-cultural methods
× However, participants will be different in different cultures. For example, people from some cultures may be more eager to please the researcher, which would bias the findings.
* When conducting research across cultures there is likely to be a conflict between the cultures; values of the participants and those of the researchers. Therefore, conclusions drawn may lack validity if the interpretation of the patients’ behaviours does not consider their cultural backgrounds.
Explain how cross-cultural methods of research are USEFUL.
• They allow us to see how similar disorders such as schizophrenia are cross-culturally. The more similar they are, the more likely that the disorder is biologically rather than culturally caused.
• Differences between cultures might suggest that different treatments might be more effective in certain cultures
Evaluate the use of the cross-cultural research clinical psychology [4 marks]
P: One strength of cross-cultural research IN CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY is that it allows us to assess how similar symptoms of disorders are in different cultures.
E: This is a strength as it will allow practitioners to be aware of possible differences when diagnosing disorders such as schizophrenia.
E:This can be seen in Lurhmann’s research, which found that voice-hearing was shaped by culture, with Americans more likely to report negative relationships with their voices than Ghanaians.
:Therefore diagnosis is likely be more accurate and therefore more valid, as practitioners will be aware of these differences.
C: On the other hand, differences between cultures may mean that the research is not accurate.
E: For example, people from some cultures may be more eager to please the researcher, thus biasing the findings and making the research less useful
Describe the use of a meta-analysis
Meta-analysis pools the findings of various pieces of research
In clinical psychology, it’s particularly useful to see how effective therapies and treatments are across different patient groups,
Give an example of the use of a meta-analysis
An example of a study using meta-analysis in clinical psychology is Carlson’s study (Network interactions in schizophrenia: therapeutic implications: 2000). Although this was primarily a literature review, he also used meta-analysis in combining the results of various neurotransmitter studies to investigate the role of neurotransmitters including dopamine, serotonin and glutamate in schizophrenia.
Strengths of a meta-analysis
•Conclusions can be drawn from a huge sample and from different areas.
•Results can be generalised to a larger population because of the larger and wider sample.
•Because more data are used, there is likely to be more precision in the analysis.
•Quick and cost effective compared with researchers having to undertake all the studies themselves.
•The research generally focuses on using peer -reviewed publications so data has been scrutinised.
Limitations of a meta-analysis
The researchers are not involved in gathering the data directly, so there may be unidentified issues of reliability and/or validity in the methods of data gathering.
There is also the possibility of publication bias (only studies which come up in a search will be published) which can impact on the validity of meta-analyses.
For example, research that produce null effects may not be published and therefore would be ignored by meta-analyses.
Describe the use of primary data in clinical psychology and give an example
Primary data are gathered first-hand from source, directly by the researcher. Examples from Year One will include Milgram (1963) studies on obedience and Bandura’s studies on looking at children copying role models.
> In clinical psychology. Rosenhan (1973), gathered primary data from first-hand observations.
Describe the use of secondary data in clinical psychology and give an example
Secondary data have already been gathered by researchers and are used by others for further research; the use of meta-analyses; Carisson et al (2000) neurotransmitter functioning.
Strengths of primary data
~ Operationalisation is done with the research in mind, so there is likely to be validity with regard to the aim.
~ More credible than secondary data, because they are gathered for the purpose with chosen research method, design etc.
Strengths of secondary data
Relatively cheap compared with primary data, as they are already collected.
Can be large quantities of data, so there might be detail.
Can be from different sources, so there is a possibility of comparing data to check for reliability and validity.
Weaknesses of primary data
Expensive compared with secondary data because data gathered from the start.
Limited to time, place and number of participants, whereas secondary data can come from different sources to give more range and detail.
Weakness of secondary data
X
X
Likely to be gathered to suit another aim, so may not be valid for the study.
When analysed originally to be presented as results, there may have been subjectivity.
May have been gathered some time before, so not in a relevant time period e.g., cultural change.
Describe the features of a case study
Researchers will use a variety of different methods to gather
information on the group, and then triangulate the data to draw conclusions. This will show validity.
Triangulation is using multiple sources of data to enhance the credibility of a research study.
In clinical psychology, these case studies may be of people with rare symptoms or individual taking part in a specific therapy.
Often, the evidence gathered will be qualitative, allowing an in-depth analysis of the group being studied (Quantitative data can be collated too).
> The conclusions will be highly valid for the sample being studied as the focus is on ‘real life’.
How is Bradshaw (1998)’s case study significant?
This case study was carried out by William Bradshaw, investigating a female patient with schizophrenia, referred to as ‘Carol’. It was a key piece of research that established cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) might have a role in treating schizophrenia, whereas before it had been regarded as inappropriate for psychotic illnesses.
This research is significant in other ways too:
This links to the issues of an understanding of how psychological understanding has developed over time.
• It shows how scientific research proceeds, because before this case study, psychologists assumed that CBT would be inappropriate for patients with psychotic disorders who struggled to tell what was real and what was not.
• It illustrates the use of a prospective case study to investigate how a course of therapy proceeds.
> However, it illustrates the generalisability problems in case studies, because Carol was not a typical patient with schizophrenia.
What was the aim of Bradshaw 1998 case study?
To investigate how CBT can be used to treat a woman with schizophrenia.
This is a study of an attempt to use psychotherapy to treat schizophrenic where drug treatment had previous been preferred - there had been little evaluation of the use of CBT for schizophrenia.
Sample: One adult female aged 26 known as Carol. Carol suffered from schizophrenia.
What was the results of Bradshaw 1998 case study?
Carol showed improvement in psychosocial functioning, achievement of goals, reduction of symptoms and she was never re-hospitalised. She reported little distress. After 1 year, Role Functioning Scale (RFS) was stable at 27 (she had scored 6 at the start.
• At the end of the study, Carol’s GPI score of 1 indicated there were few symptoms present and she reported little distress.
• GAS increased from 19.85 to 80.15, which shows that treatment goals had been attained. Goals included staring a college course, taking on a volunteer job and going out once a week with friends.
The improvement was still in evidence a year after the therapy finished.
