Qualitative Study Research Critique
Research Critiques
In the current generation, there has been a rise in overweight and obesity statistics. Research suggests that, since 1975, the number of people currently overweight and obese has more than tripled. The current number of people who are overweight stands at 1.9 billion people while 605 million people of them are obese. The number of other diseases associated with this condition are many and include heart conditions, diabetes type 2, and some types of cancer. As people with these conditions get older, there are increased chances and risks for developing these life-threatening conditions. Continual research must be conducted to keep our data updated regarding the prevalence of this condition. Data on its prevalence will enable stakeholders such as healthcare facilities, government, and healthcare researchers to come up with strategies that will reduce the current prevalence and formulate policies and methodologies of how to deal with the condition. Healthcare facilities need to identify the people with the condition and be ever ready to take care of them while offering counsel that will be beneficial for the life of the person. There have been different research that has been done to examine the prevalence of overweight and obesity. The PICOT question aimed at establishing the prevalence of obesity in adolescents, its current trends, and how we can use the data to ease the occurrence of other diseases caused by obesity.
Background
The first qualitative article, “Why do parents enroll in a childhood obesity management program?” by K. Davidson, the purpose of the study was to gain more insight into parents’ perspectives on factors that influence their decision to enroll their child in a program that addresses their child’s weight. The research problem acknowledged that there is a high prevalence of overweight and obesity among children and adolescents but there is a reluctancy by parents to enroll their children into weight management programs because of factors such as cost, time-consuming and has limited effect on their children (Davidson & Vidgen, 2017). There has been limited research into why parents do not want their children to enroll on weight management programs while they acknowledge their children have this problem. Some of the reasons parents have been to give for not enrolling their children into such problems include believing that their children will outgrow the overweight and obese part as it’s just a life stage, their children might be stigmatized by other people and be labelled as obese, and others fear talking to their children about weight. The significance of this research to rising it that it will enable nurses and other practitioners to understand why parents do not want their children in such programs and establish suitable countermeasures that will make parents understand overweight and obese as a problem that requires immediate attention (Davidson & Vidgen, 2017). This research will be used to provide details on the barriers that make parents and children do not want to join weight management programs. It will also try to investigate whether the weight management programs are effective enough to have a significant effect in the treatment of overweight and obesity (Davidson & Vidgen, 2017).
The second qualitative article, “Perceptions of a Pragmatic Family-Centered Approach to Childhood Obesity Treatment by B. Kennedy, investigates the parents’ and family views and opinions on the treatment of overweight and obese children. The study aimed to identify the perception of parents and children on what should be added to weight management programs and get to know the benefits and preferences when it comes to these programs (Kennedy et al., 2021) s. The research problem identified that there was little research that investigated the perception of parents and their children on joining weight management problems. Many parents and children had a negative perception towards these programs and there is low enlisting into these programs, yet the prevalence of obesity and overweight continues to grow (Kennedy et al., 2021). Research into this area will be beneficial for all stakeholders as it would explore why treatment programs are not working from a different angle. When the needs of parents and children will be identified, we will develop and counter the barriers leading to satisfactory weight management programs (Kennedy et al., 2021). Intervention policies will also be developed that will look at the problem from a different angle. This is one trend that will be able to answer the PICOT question.
The first quantitative article, “Prevalence and stabilizing trends in overweight and obesity among children and adolescents in China” by (Zhang et al., 2018) studied the trends and prevalence of overweight and obesity among children and adolescents in China from the year 2011 to 2015. The purpose of the study was to research and analyze the prevalence rates and trends for overweight and obesity among children in China. The significance of the study would provide every stakeholder in the healthcare sector with up-to-date information that would be used in policymaking, planning, and strategizing on how to control and treat the condition. In the article, they first acknowledge that childhood obesity is a major public health concern that needs to be urgent attention to curb its growth and risks associated with it. The literature review that they had conducted shows that the prevalence of childhood obesity and overweight seems to be stagnating in more developing countries when compared to low and middle-income countries. Children and adolescents of the current generation are seen to grow in obesogenic environments which would impress on them gaining weight and being obese. Previously as late as 1985 in China, being obese and overweight was not a major health concern as their prevalence stood at 0.1% and 1.1% respectively (Zhang et al., 2018). But this is no longer the case as rapid economic growth in China had a major impact on the eating and physical behavior of people in China. A study conducted in 2012, concluded that there was a significant increase in the prevalence of overweight and obesity as it recorded a prevalence rate of 9.6% and 6.4% respectively from children aged between 6-17 years (Zhang et al., 2018). In developed countries such as Germany, the UK, and the US, there has been quite a significant stabilization of these rates but in other countries, this is not the case, especially in the prevalence rate s of children aged from 6 to 17 years (Zhang et al., 2018). The research question was what the causes of the recent trends are concerning obesity in children and adolescents. Research from other countries can be used to some extent to relate to issues facing another country.
The second quantitative article “Overweight and obesity among Saudi children and adolescents: Where do we stand today? was done by Al-Hussaini et al. (2019). The purpose of the study was to evaluate how rampant overweight and obesity among children adolescents in Saudi Arabia and determine its trend in Riyadh City over the last twenty years. The significance of the study would ensure nurses and every other stakeholder in the healthcare sector had relevant information to tackle the issue and can advise patients on the need for lifestyle changes. The objective would see to it that policymakers had the prerequisite knowledge that would be needed to formulate relevant intervention measures that concerned obesity. The study used the World Health Organizations criteria to define overweight and obesity, used data comparable to the aim of the study by using age (6-18 years) and the region that the study tries to evaluate (Al-Hussaini et al., 2019). The study acknowledged that there are more than 107.1 million children and over 603.7 million adults with obesity as per research conducted back in 2015 and it was related to the risk of other comorbidities such as metabolic syndrome. Fatty liver acids, premature deaths, and cardiovascular diseases (Al-Hussaini et al., 2019). This correlation made the World Health Organization consider it a public health threat, especially to children. The significant economic prosperity that has been experienced in Saudi Arabia in the last thirty years has led to lifestyle change that in turn led to an increase in cases of overweight and obesity. Few past studies done in the country were related to the prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents and others were old meaning they could not be relied upon to give credible and reliable data for current use. This study, however, sought to reestablish the prevailing trends and prevalence of the condition that all necessary stakeholders could use to create policies and access how they could help and plan for the public.
Methods
In the first qualitative research article “Why do parents enroll in a childhood obesity management program?”, participants were 1400 children who were aged between 5 to 11 years who met the overweight and obese criteria and their children (Davidson & Vidgen, 2017). The Australian government had set up a program called Parenting, Eating, and Activity for Child Health which established that family-focused intervention would reduce the weight of children participating by -10% (Davidson & Vidgen, 2017). Data was collected through family focus groups that were held over a period of six months. The sessions were face-to-face and were held for 3 years in various locations in five stages. During recruitment, information was distributed through emails and telephone to people who met the PEACH criteria, and follow-up calls were made to different people to increase diversity in age and geography in the study. 21 enrollees consented to the study. Data was also collected through semi-structured qualitative telephone interviews with open-ended questions that aligned with constructs of the theory (Davidson & Vidgen, 2017).
The second qualitative research article, “Perceptions of a Pragmatic Family-Centered Approach to Childhood Obesity Treatment” focuses on groups to collect data. It included both parents and children who were aged between 6 to 17 years in its study (Kennedy et al., 2021). The participants in the study had been through word of mouth and advertisements on church bulletins and flyers given in schools (Kennedy et al., 2021). Recruitment mostly relied on a network of friends and colleagues that knew and were in previous studies. They all knew of the requirements of the program and consented to the study (Kennedy et al., 2021). Study protocols, procedures and consent forms were approved by the Pennington Biomedical Research Center Institutional Review Board (Kennedy et al., 2021).
The first quantitative article “Prevalence and stabilizing trends in overweight and obesity among children and adolescents in China” according to the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) and China Nutrition Transition Cohort Survey (CNTCS). The two databases had information that had been continually collected from 15 provinces (Zhang et al., 2018). The data collection method that was used included a multi-stage, stratified, random cluster sampling design that represented the population well. The sample size comprised 1458 children and 1084 adolescents. The data collected was subdivided into age, gender, living area, and geographic regions. Data analysis used t-tests to analyze differences and trends while chi-square analyses were used to examine the prevalence of overweight and obesity (Zhang et al., 2018).
The second quantitative article “Overweight and obesity among Saudi children and adolescents: Where do we stand today? “involved a cross-sectional population-based study that measured various aspects related to overweight and obesity such as height, weight, and body mass for children aged between 6-16 years in Riyadh. the study used students from 104 schools around the city and used the probability proportionate sampling procedure (Al-Hussaini et al., 2019). The study used frequencies and percentages to represent categorical variables such as age groups, gender, and region while variables such as socioeconomic score and age were represented as mean. T-tests were used to analyze categorical variables while chi-square was used to determine the significant association between categorical variables (Al-Hussaini et al., 2019).
Results of the study
The qualitative research article “Why do parents enroll in a childhood obesity management program?” results showed that parents had prior knowledge of their children’s status as being overweight and obese and had tried other alternatives such as talking to friends and getting help from several people (Davidson & Vidgen, 2017). Parents mostly were influenced to enroll their children in these programs by their emotions, their previous attempts, and their children’s feelings (Davidson & Vidgen, 2017).
The second qualitative research article, “Perceptions of a Pragmatic Family-Centered Approach to Childhood Obesity Treatment” highlighted that parent believed parental interventions, healthy eating education, and effective programs would have an impact on reducing the weight of their children. Children also had the same view (Kennedy et al., 2021). They established parental involvement was core for the effectiveness and implementation of family-based weight management programs. These programs were also seen to improve psychological wellbeing (Kennedy et al., 2021).
The quantitative research article,” Prevalence and stabilizing trends in overweight and obesity among children and adolescents in China” suggested that the prevalence of overweight and obesity was 12.25% in boys while in girls it was 8.4%. there was a significant increase in the BMI results among adolescents, but this was not noted among children (Zhang et al., 2018).
The quantitative research article, “Overweight and obesity among Saudi children and adolescents: Where do we stand today”, results suggested that there was a prevalence of 13.4% and 18.2% for overweight and obesity respectively. Obesity prevalence among boys was at 18.4% while that for girls stood at 18% (Al-Hussaini et al., 2019). The prevalence of overweight and obesity among children was lower than that of adolescents.
PICOT and article Relationship
Proposed Evidence Based Practice Change
Ethical Considerations
Ethical considerations associated with the nursing research of the two qualitative research articles are. There are various ethical considerations that were used. A critical examination of one of the studies indicates that all participants were provided with written informed consent. Consent is crucial when it comes to conducting research. Additionally, the researchers obtained permission from the authorities in charge to conduct research. Permission from higher authorities makes all the operations legal. The other ethical consideration in the studies is voluntary participation. The participants were allowed to take part in the research on their own volition. In the quantitative research, the studies acknowledged that data was to be collected from minors and therefore sought out consent from their parents and guardians to collect data from the students. For all, the subjects, the parents gave written agreements for the participation of their children in the research. The studies were also approved by the necessary authority such as the institutional review boards. The participants were well informed of what the study entailed, and their privacy was upheld by not revealing the details of the persons involved in the study.
Conclusion
Prevalence rates of overweight and obesity among teenagers is high. Boys were the most affected as they had higher rates of obesity and overweight in both studies. Considering this, there is a need for relevant stakeholders to be involved in formulating policies that would benefit the public in matters of obesity. These policies need to be sustainable and intensive to reduce the ever-rising prevalence among adolescents. The up-to-date information on this topic provided by various articles should be used to monitor the trends and try to curb the prevailing rates.
References
Davidson, K., & Vidgen, H. (2017). Why do parents enroll in a childhood obesity management program?: a qualitative study with parents of overweight and obese children. BMC Public Health, 17(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-017-4085-2
Kennedy, B. M., Davison, G., Fowler, L. A., Rodriguez-Guzman, E., Collins, M. L., Baker, A., Cook, S., Lindros, J., Wilfley, D. E., Zebrick, A. J., & Staiano, A. E. (2021). Perceptions of a Pragmatic Family-Centered Approach to Childhood Obesity Treatment. Ochsner Journal, 21(1), 30–40. https://doi.org/10.31486/toj.19.0126
Al-Hussaini, A., Bashir, M., Khormi, M., AlTuraiki, M., Alkhamis, W., Alrajhi, M., & Halal, T. (2019). Overweight and obesity among Saudi children and adolescents: Where do we stand today? Saudi Journal of Gastroenterology, 25(4), 229. https://doi.org/10.4103/sjg.sjg_617_18
Zhang, J., Wang, H., Wang, Z., Du, W., Su, C., Zhang, J., Jiang, H., Jia, X., Huang, F., Ouyang, Y., Wang, Y., & Zhang, B. (2018). Prevalence and stabilizing trends in overweight and obesity among children and adolescents in China, 2011–2015. BMC Public Health, 18(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-018-5483-9
