Biology Qualitative protocol draft assignment

It’s actually doing the real study, need to be feasible on college, one person level and then pretend that I did the study.

• Specific what qualitative design I am doing.
• APA format.
• Follow the example on the document attached.

Sample Study Protocol

Smoking among ambulance personnel

Background

Cardiovascular diseases are a major problem in the US. In 2006, approximately eighty million people have one or more forms of cardiovascular disease (CVD), including high blood pressure, stroke, coronary heart disease (myocardial infarction, angina), and heart failure (AHA, 2009). Death from CVDs represents over 35% of all deaths in this country. Many factors increase someone’s risks of developing a cardiovascular disease, including smoking, family history, age, diabetes, physical inactivity, high cholesterol, and obesity. Ambulance personnel, also called Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs), respond everyday to 911 calls involving people with all kind of emergencies including cardiovascular diseases and complications. Intense daily exposure to stressful emergencies puts EMTs at high risk of maladaptive reactions like; illness, depression, and impaired performance ADDIN EN.CITE (Boudreaux, Jones, Mandry, & Brantley, 1996) . And one consequence of intense and continuous stress is an increase in smoking (Pomerleau & Pomerleau, 1991).

However, due to their knowledge of health risks associated with smoking, one would expect that smoking behavior would be lower among such a group compared to the general US population, but it not (Pirrallo, Levine, & Dickison, 2005). Therefore, in this study, our objectives are to determine; 1) what EMTs know about health risks and consequences associated with smoking, 2) How they perceive their daily job stress as factor influencing smoking habits, 3) what other factors influence smoking behavior among EMTs beside job related stress.

Study Design

This is a cross-sectional qualitative study design with a phenomenological approach.

Sample

For this study, since I will explore EMTs perception and experience on smoking, I plan on interviewing enough participants until I reach saturation. Ideally, this could require 12 to 18 participants. However, due to the time restraints associated with this study, I will use a small sample size of three.

· Target population: Emergency Medical Technicians living in Georgia

· Inclusion criteria; be 18 years old or older, males or females , hold a current EMT certification, be a smoker.

· Exclusion criteria; not holding a current EMT card, less than 18 years old, not living in Georgia

Setting

The location of study procedures and data collection will be the respondent’s workplace. I plan on interviewing them at EMS station 8 in Marrietta, GA.

Recruitment

I will conveniently choose one ambulance company, the Metro Atlanta Ambulance Services (MAAS). Then, I will invite three EMTs who smoke to participate in the study after explaining to them what the study is about.

Procedures

I will be conducting three in-depth interviews. The interaction with the participant will be an oral interview about smoking among EMTs. The interview will take place at the participant’s workplace, will be recorded, and will be administered by the researcher. No other interactions (MRI, cognitive testing, and experimental procedures) will take place in this study. Each respondent will be in the study for about half an hour; just the time needed to be informed about the study and to answer the questionnaire.

Measures

A questionnaire developed by the researcher will be used to learn; what EMTs know about health risks and consequences associated with smoking; how they perceive their daily job stress as factor influencing smoking habits; and what other factors influence smoking behavior among them beside job related stress.

Risks to participation

There are no foreseeable risks or discomfort associated with this study.

Benefits to subject or future benefits

There are no direct benefits to study subjects. However, the findings will add to the knowledge about factors that influence EMTs to smoke, and will help create interventions to decrease smoking behavior among EMTs.

Data analysis

Interview data will be analyzed using the qualitative software package called MaxQDA, version 3.4.5.

Training for research personnel

No personnel training is required. The researcher will conduct the interviews, record, and do a verbatim transcription of the audio content of the interviews.

Plans for data management and monitoring

The questionnaire will not include name, only an interview numbers. All recorded answers and field notes will be transferred to the researcher’s laptop and will be password protected. They will also be backed up on an external drive. Only the researcher will have access to the laptop and the back-up drive.

Confidentiality

No medical records or photos data will be collected or stored. The questionnaire (field notes) will not include name but only an interview number. All answers will be transferred from the questionnaire form to the researcher’s laptop and will be password protected. Only the researcher will have access to the laptop and back-up drive. Once the original forms have been processed and checked, all forms will be destroyed. Until they are destroyed, they will be stored in a locked file, accessible only to the researcher. The voice data will be saved on the researcher’s computer and be password protected. They will be destroyed after transcription and analysis

Informed consent

At the respondent’s workplace, the qualified EMT who agrees to participate will be given another explanation of the study, then he will be given the consent form to read and to sign if he still agrees to participate, I will informed the participants at the end of the study about the findings

References

http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4478AHA (2009). Cardiovascular Disease Statistics, from

Boudreaux, E., Jones, G. N., Mandry, C., & Brantley, P. J. (1996). Patient care and daily stress among emergency medical technicians

The effects of stressors on emergency medical technicians (Part II): A critical review of the literature, and a call for further research

Sources of stress among emergency medical technicians (Part I): What does the research say? Prehosp Disaster Med, 11(3), 188-193; discussion 193-184.

Pirrallo, R. G., Levine, R., & Dickison, P. D. (2005). Behavioral health risk factors of United States emergency medical technicians: the LEADS Project. Prehosp Disaster Med, 20(4), 235-242.

Pomerleau, O. F., & Pomerleau, C. S. (1991). Research on stress and smoking: progress and problems. British Journal of Addiction, 86(5), 599-603.