Scholarly Paper Analysis: “Improving Care for Depression in Obstetrics and Gynecology
In the article developed by Melville et al. (2014), the theme of depression in obstetrics and gynecology is discussed. The authors use the statistical data and evaluate the impact of a certain depression care intervention that could be adopted by special obstetrics and gynecology clinics and compare the chosen type of care with usual care.
Measures of central tendency are the first statistics computed which may be applied for continuous variables in a new set of data (Boslaugh, 2012). In this article, the authors used one of the most frequently used measures, the mean. It is usually used to explain discrete and continuous data and explore the values in the chosen portion of data in regards to the number of values. It is also known as the average of a set of values (Boslaugh, 2012). 118 participants were chosen for each group of the study “to have an 80% chance, with a two-sided 5% significance levels, of detecting an effect size of 0.57 in the mean Hopkins Symptom Checklist-20 score” (Melville et al., 2014, p. 1240). The effect size was also detected in the mean of the Sheehan Disability Score. Therefore, it is correct to admit that the mean is the main measure of central tendency used in the article.
The standard deviation related to the article is calculated from the values and their relations to the mean of the data set. “Correlations between 0.3 and 0.5 for our primary outcome across time and attribution up to 25%” were allowed (Melville et al., 2014, p. 1240). The authors used descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, and generalized estimating models with the help of which the inclusion of data could promote effective treatment in groups over time.
References
Boslaugh, S. (2012). Statistics in a nutshell: A desktop quick reference. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media.
Melville, J.L., Reed, S.D., Russo, J., Croicu. C.A., Cockburn, A.L., & Katon, W.K. (2014). Improving care for depression in obstetrics and gynecology: A randomized controlled trial. Obstetrics & Gynecology, 123(6), 1237-1246.