In the article called “Development of a telephone-based intervention for support persons to help smokers quit” the authors use scientific literature throughout the text. Most frequently the references to additional resources are found in the introduction of the paper, this is done with the purpose of a deeper explanation of the explored subject and introduction of the problem researched in the work. Referring to the results and information found in other researches the authors connect their work with a variety of previous studies, support their argument and the choice of research subject with qualitative and quantitative data, and evidence found by other scholars within previous years. Further, the additional literature is used in such sections of the paper as “Methods”, “Measures and Statistics” and “Discussion”.
In the introduction section, the literature is mainly used to outline the problem. The authors refer to previous studies in order to point pot what aspects of intervention for smokers were more and less successful, and which approaches showed inconsistent results. Besides, the literature is used to present the approach to intervention treatment for smokers chosen by the authors of this article, and how the research has developed previously. Moreover, the authors employ literature to outline the theory that served as the basis for the research (social-cognitive theory). As a result, the readers are introduced to the hypothesis explored by the authors further in the paper. In the section called “Methods,” literature is used to mention intervention models and principles applied in the paper. In the section named “Measures and Statistics” literature use emphasizes the measuring scale along with the results of the prior research. In the discussion, the authors refer to the previous study in order to compare the current research with it.
In the article under analysis, literature is used to introduce the problem, it is very noticeable in the introduction section where the authors refer to additional sources almost in every other sentence. Besides, the literature is used to outline the problems revealed during the course of the previous studies and provides directions for further research and hypotheses. Prior research is often mentioned to provide a comparison with the present study which is natural as any new paper is based on the findings of the previous studies (Analyzing and Evaluating the Use of Literature, 2013).
The authors clearly state that the research of self-help intervention treatments for smokers is the central subject of the research. They also mention that the problem addressed within the study is the efficiency of telephone-based training sessions for support persons of smokers. The paper clearly describes the participants, methods of research, and data collection. Moreover, the research clearly summarizes key results, which makes the paper a research paper with a distinct subject, a theory, empirical research, and evaluation of the results. This approach matches the five stages of literature used for evidence-based medical research mentioned by Nagurney (2015) as a formulation of a clinical problem, identification of clear evidence, critical evaluation of evidence, action based on the evaluation, and assessment of the results. This means that the article called “Development of a telephone-based intervention for support persons to help smokers quit” is clearly a report of a research study, but not an essay, typology, or an opinion paper, yet it certainly has elements of past research synthesis.
As for the contents of the study, I think that more background information concerning smoking cessation methods targeting support persons, or other methods of smoking intervention that work without a smoker’s desire to quit. What are general statistics concerning the support persons’ chances to change the mind of substance abusers without their direct consent. What about ethical side of this issue? Is it fair to act on a perceived issue of someone else?
Reference List
Analyzing and Evaluating the Use of Literature. (2013). Psychological Musings. Web.
Nagurney, J. T. (2015). Evaluating the Literature. Web.