Ensuring that a study is conducted under the principles of quality is essential because it allows the researcher to ensure that the results are valid and can be used to address public health issues. The research in question will be performed in the field of public health, and the topic is HIV-positive women’s mental health problems. The quality approach selected for this study is the CASP, and this paper will discuss how the criteria of CASP apply to the research project.
The field of public health requires policymakers and practitioners to use efficient strategies to both address the public’s health needs and utilize the given resources with maximum efficiency. According to CASP (n.d.), critical appraisal is necessary to “assess the trustworthiness, relevance, and results of published papers,” and this approach will be used to evaluate the quality of the future study into HIV-positive women (para. 2). The strategies used to ensure the trustworthiness of the study are peer review and external audits. Peer review implies the submission of the article describing the details of the research process and the design to a journal that then sends this article to the professionals working in the same field, who review it and make conclusions about the validity (Tennant & Ross-Hellauer, 2020). External audits imply that “a researcher not involved in the research process examines both the process and product of the research study,” which also helps determine whether the design and the conclusions are valid (“External audits, n.d., para. 1). Both cases are applicable for this study; however, an external audit is more applicable considering that the process will take less time and will allow the researcher to make changes to the design if necessary.
When assessing the quality of the future study, CASP (2018) recommends using a checklist with three key domains that allow the researcher to determine if their study design is sufficient for addressing the community’s health needs. The three domains are validity, the nature of the results, and their potential application for the local community, and there are a total of 10 questions for each of the three domains that help determine the quality of a research study. Hence, answering the CASP’s checklist would be the first step to determining the quality of a study. For example, with this study, the research question is clearly stated as the issue under investigation is the mental health deterioration of women with HIV. The qualitative design is applicable because this study aims to gain insight into the issue, which means that the research design appropriately addresses the issue. Both the recruitment strategy, which is advertising the study in the healthcare facility and data collection, which is interviews are appropriate. Ethical issues will be addressed through consent forms, and the researchers and participants will be unfamiliar with one another, addressing the issue of the relationship between the two groups. The data analysis will be rigorous due to the use of text analysis, and the findings will be clearly outlined at the end of the article describing this study. Considering the importance of mental health and the detrimental effect of a terminal condition such as HIV, this study is very valuable for patients and health workers alike.
According to Spenser et al. (2003), “with an assessment of the findings, move through different stages of the research process (design, sampling, data collection, analysis, and reporting) and end with some general features of research conduct (reflexivity and neutrality, ethics and auditability” (p. 8). Hence, when assessing the quality of this study, it is necessary to examine the design, which is qualitative, and use a sampling method, such as random sampling, that will allow to inclusion a sufficient number of participants to generalize the findings of the study.
References
CASP. (n.d.). Why CASP.
CASP. (2018). Critical appraisal skills program. CASP.
External audits. (n.d.). Qualitative Research Guidelines Project.
Spencer, L., Ritchie, J., Lewis, J., & Dillon, L. (2003). Quality in qualitative evaluation. Government Chief Social Researcher’s Office.
Tennant, J., & Ross-Hellauer, T. (2020). The limitations to our understanding of peer review.Research Integrity and Peer Review, 5(1).