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The discipline of strategic thinking in healthcare
Published in Robert Jones, Fiona Jenkins, Managing and Leading in the Allied Health Professions, 2021
Every strategic problem places unique requirements on decision makers. When we look beyond the particular strategic issues of any given healthcare organisation, we find at least four generic demands on leaders. The key demands that underpin strategic analysis include: time pressures, multiple stakeholder values, complexity and uncertainty. Each of these demand characteristics will be discussed briefly.
The independent variable
Published in Robyn L. Tate, Michael Perdices, Single-Case Experimental Designs for Clinical Research and Neurorehabilitation Settings, 2019
Robyn L. Tate, Michael Perdices
Treatment adherence can be measured indirectly and directly (Gresham, 2014; Perepletchikova, 2014). Indirect measures include self-report, rating scales, and interviews with the practitioner and/or participant about what was done. But investigator and participant reactivity (e.g. demand characteristics of indirect measurement and pressure to provide socially desirable responses) may compromise reliability and accuracy, thereby calling the result into question.
Evaluating Experimental Procedures
Published in Fred Pyrczak, Maria Tcherni-Buzzeo, Evaluating Research in Academic Journals, 2018
Fred Pyrczak, Maria Tcherni-Buzzeo
Comment: If participants have no knowledge of whether they are in the experimental or control group, such experiments are called blind, or blinded (double-blind if the assessors of outcomes also don’t know the participants’ group assignments). However, it is not always possible to conduct blinded experiments. If participants know (or suspect) the purpose of an experiment, this knowledge may influence their responses. For instance, in a study on the effects of a film showing negative consequences of drinking alcohol, the experimental-group participants might report more negative attitudes toward alcohol only because they suspect the researcher has hypothesized that this will happen. In other words, sometimes participants try to give researchers what they think the researchers expect. This is known as a demand characteristic. It is called this because the phenomenon operates as though a researcher is subtly demanding a certain outcome.
Developing an ACT-based intervention to address lung cancer stigma: Stakeholder recommendations and feasibility testing in two NCI-designated cancer centers
Published in Journal of Psychosocial Oncology, 2023
Deanna M. Kaplan, Heidi A. Hamann, Sarah N. Price, Timothy J. Williamson, Elizabeth S. Ver Hoeve, Mairead H. McConnell, Jennifer E. Duchschere, Linda L. Garland, Jamie S. Ostroff
To collect further qualitative information about acceptability, during the final interventions session, interventionists asked for feedback about (a) difficulties they encountered with the intervention and recommended changes, and (b) any perceived benefits of the interventions. Interventionists reported that none of the patients enrolled in the study reported difficulties in completing study-related tasks or recommended changes to the intervention. Participants reported high satisfaction, and endorsed increased awareness of internal experience, reduced self-criticism and enhanced self-compassion, and renewed focus on value-congruent action as benefits of participation. This qualitative information should be interpreted in the context of possible demand characteristics however, given that treatment feedback was collected by the interventionist who had been working with the participant.
Utilizing ACT daily as a self-guided app for clients waiting for services at a college counseling center: A pilot study
Published in Journal of American College Health, 2022
Jack A. Haeger, Carter H. Davis, Michael E. Levin
Because of the study’s small sample size and open-trial design, several limitations should be noted when interpreting these results. First, the sample was largely female and White. To increase generalizability of findings, future studies of ACT Daily should recruit larger and more diverse samples of college students. Likewise, the heterogeneity of the sample in regards to therapy and medication use should also be considered and potentially controlled for in future, larger-scale trials. Differing levels of utilization of ACT Daily within the sample, such as having two users who used the app less than once per day, may additionally impact the generalizability of these results. To improve feasibility, it would be beneficial to design future iterations of ACT Daily to be compatible across smartphone platforms, given that users who were unable to use their personal devices demonstrated significantly less engagement. Other relevant sources that may have contributed to study results include regression to the mean due to repeated observations, demand characteristics, and spontaneous remission. While this study did not control for all of these confounding variables, demand characteristics may have been partially mitigated by facilitating strict confidentiality policies and assuring participants that outcomes would not be shared with CCC clinicians. Although spontaneous remission cannot be accounted for in full, potential remission associated with the elimination of end-of-semester environmental stressors was unlikely (e.g. only one participant enrolled in the study before finals and completed their post assessment during break).
Effect of eye closure on speech recognition in noise: in light and in darkness
Published in International Journal of Audiology, 2021
E-Ching Eugena Kok, Bradley McPherson
This study had several limitations. First, the experimenter undertaking data collection (the first author) in this study was not blinded to the conditions nor the hypotheses. This could possibly lead to observer bias. Participants were blinded to the hypotheses but not to the conditions as variables in this study are either visible or require voluntary participant action. The participants might possibly guess the experimental hypotheses and exhibit demand characteristics. Furthermore, this study only evaluated the effect of an external visual stimulus by comparing a sound booth in darkness and in light. However, a sound booth in light only contains a minimal and constant external visual stimulus, which is not very stimulating or distracting. This condition is not representative of the usual daily environment, where listeners are typically exposed to a complex visual environment which involves movements and changes. The greater complexity of the normal visual environment will introduce greater distraction and cognitive load, and may affect SRN performance more significantly. Finally, this study used unfamiliar sentences as test materials, while daily conversations are usually composed of contextual sentences, which would be easier to discriminate than those used in this study. Therefore, the results may not be representative of common daily situations, yet may represent unfamiliar communication situations where an individual will experience the greatest difficulty.