Setting
Regarding the fact that the given project is focused on the investigation of the issue of obesity among children and the impact parents education might have on reducing excess weight, the following sampling procedure could be suggested. The total number of participants could be limited to 20 children and their parents. All patients should be divided into two groups regarding the level of adults knowledge and education on healthy eating and lifestyle that can help to prevent the development of obesity and the appearance of bad habits among children. The introduction of two groups is stipulated by the purpose of the study, which is to determine the efficiency of parents education and compare it with the intervention that presupposes medical treatment.
For this reason, children in the first group will follow the guidelines established by their parents to reduce their weight and improve their quality of life. Participants belonging to the second group should be provided with medical treatment depending on the peculiarities of their health problem. The collection of data could be conducted either at a local health unit where parents and their children will come to monitor alterations in BMIs or at participants homes if they do not have an opportunity to visit a hospital. The given data collection procedure will help to gather reliable data about the participants and compare it to assess the efficiency of every intervention (McEwen & Wills, 2017).
Inclusion and Sampling
Thus, the central criteria for inclusion come from the nature of the research. These are problems with excess weight among children who will be included in the study, and the presence of particular knowledge about healthy behaviors and lifestyle among parents. The probability sampling technique could be applied to the given research. It guarantees the increased relevance of collected data and its credibility. Therefore, considering the fact that we are interested in particular groups within the target population (families with obese children), a stratified random sampling procedure should be used to find participants and distributed them into the above-mentioned groups. The efficiency of this approach is evidenced by numerous research works that also delve into similar health problems (LoBiondo-Wood & Haber, 2013).
Methodology
Finally, to prove the suggested hypothesis (parental education is more effective than medical treatment in reducing childhood obesity), quantitative methods should be used. Therefore, an experimental research design should be explored to monitor alterations in two above-mentioned groups and collect data needed to compare outcomes and determine the most efficient approach to reducing extra weight in children with obesity. Participants of the research should be examined before the described interventions (parents education and medical treatment), and after their application (LoBiondo-Wood & Haber, 2013). It will provide researchers with quantitative data related to the impact these measures might have on children and make a conclusion. Moreover, the experimental design might help either to prove or to refute the suggested hypothesis. The use of the proposed research design is expected to contribute to the high relevance of data and its possible use in future research related to the issue.
Altogether, the nature of the project presupposes the use of stratified sampling as the efficient way to select participants for the research, divide them into two different groups characterized by different interventions and guarantee the enhanced credibility of final data. It should be supported by the experimental research design including measures at the beginning and the end of the study.
References
LoBiondo-Wood, G., & Haber, J. (2013). Nursing research: Methods and critical appraisal for evidence-based practice (8th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Mosby.
McEwen, M., & Wills, E. M. (2017). Theoretical basis for nursing (4th ed.). New York, NY: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.