Epidemiological Methods and Measurements

Epidemiological Methods and Measurements

Randomized Controlled Trial

 Peltzer, K., Weiss, S. M., Soni, M., Lee, T. K., Rodriguez, V. J., Cook, R., . . . Jones, D. L. (2017). A cluster randomized controlled trial of lay health worker support for prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) in South Africa. AIDS Research and Therapy, 14(61).

1. The study’s design has a specified goal, which is to determine the effect of clinic-based PMTCT community assistance provided by qualified lay healthcare practitioners in augmentation to regular clinical care on PMTCT newborn outgrowths (Peltzer et al., 2017). The presence of a study objective helps readers to know the purpose of an investigation.
2. The investigation adopted a cluster randomized controlled trial, whereby one group of participants received a standard care condition coupled with a time-equivalent attention control on infection alleviation. The intervention group received an enhanced treatment of SC PMTCT, as well as the “Protect Your Family Program” (Peltzer et al., 2017).

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3. Participants in the study entailed HIV positive pregnant women drawn from 12 randomized community health facilities in South Africa (Peltzer et al., 2017). The use of randomization prevented bias.
4. Data collection involved testing and recording the HIV status of infants after six weeks from birth and 12 months (Peltzer et al., 2017).
5. The authors of the study identified the variables, which included the HIV status of infants, ART compliance, and HIV and PMTCT knowledge (Peltzer et al., 2017).
6. Data analysis was performed using Mplus. In all the groups, the prevalence of HIV among the newborns was below 3% (Peltzer et al., 2017).
7. The main weakness of a randomized controlled trial is the requirement for the large sample size for reliability purposes (Hiremath & Javali, 2019).
8. The outcomes of the survey established that the enhanced intervention offered by the qualified lay healthcare practitioners had no substantial effect on the HIV status of infants, ART compliance, as well as HIV and PMTCT knowhow. As such, the outcomes have little significance to practice.

Cross-Sectional Study

 Nordlof, H., Wiitavaara, B., Hogberg, H., & Westerling, R. (2017). A cross-sectional study of factors influencing occupational health and safety management practices in companies. Safety Science, 95, 92-103.

1. The survey design has a specified question, which is to establish if the size of a firm, financial performance, and safety culture have an effect on occupational health and safety management (OHSM) procedures in organizations (Nordlof, Wiitavaara, Hogberg, & Westerling, 2017). The presence of a study’s objective helps readers to know the purpose of an investigation.
2. The study adopted a cross-sectional methodology and involved manufacturing firms in a Swedish county (Nordlof et al., 2017).
3. The participating firms had ten workers or more (Nordlof et al., 2017). No information is provided concerning their recruitment.
4. Data gathering entailed the use of questionnaires, which were to be filled by one manager and a safety delegate from the participating organizations.
5. The study’s variables include organizational size, financial performance, and safety procedures (Nordlof et al., 2017).
6. The primary limitation of the study methodology is that it cannot establish causality.
7. Data analysis was conducted with the ordinal regression analysis under the use of the generalized estimating equations (Nordlof et al., 2017).
8. The outgrowths of the survey established that safety culture, creditworthiness, and organizational size are linked with desirable or worse OHSM practices in firms. This result implies that companies should adopt a positive safety culture to enhance OHSM practices (Nordlof et al., 2017). Small-sized companies should also learn from large organizations with better OHSM practices.