Hlten514b Research Skills With Contemporary Health Environment

Hlten514b Research Skills With Contemporary Health Environment

Problem

Stress is found to be associated with a large number of diseases as it leads to headaches, cardiac diseases, infections, etc and also affects a person's behaviour like cause physical inactivity, overeating, alcoholism and smoking. It not only plays a major role in causing high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels and cardiac diseases but is also found to affect a person’s recovery from heart disease (Jiang, et al. 2002).

It is common for people to get stressed or depressed following a myocardial infarction, cardiac procedure or new diagnosis of heart disease. But this anxiety, depression and stress in patients in cardiac units of hospital exert a negative impact on their heart health. Unmanaged stress or depression can enhance blood pressure, weakens immune system and even leads to blood clots. Thus, it becomes essential to manage stress and depression of people by providing them required support and also by encouraging them to involve in physical activities

Goal

To identify the impact of encouraging cardiac disease patients to participate in social activities to manage their stress and depression related to their illness

Objectives

To identify whether heart diseases are related to stress and depression among patients in cardiac department of a hospital

To identify the negative impact of stress and depression on heart health of patients admitted in cardiac department of a hospital

To identify the beneficial impact of engaging patients in social activities in combating their stress and depression

Justification of study

A large number of studies has been done to establish a relationship between stress, depression and heart diseases suggesting that stress act a major trigger for heart disease and also, people get stressed and depressed following the new diagnosis of heart disease, heart attack or any cardiac surgery. It is believed that this depressed mental state and anxiety hampers the recovery and health outcomes of the patient and thus, must be managed through appropriate techniques. One of the techniques is to encourage patients to get involved in social activities so that they get relaxed and get some time off from anxiety and negative thoughts. Current data on this measure is limited, thus, this study would be conducted to identify the positive impact of same.

Literature review

Kemp et al. 2003 studied to establish a relationship between heart disease and depression and suggested that depression brings poor health outcomes in cardiac patients. It was found in the study that almost 15 to 20% of patients develop major depression following a myocardial infarction and 27% are found to be affected by minor depression. Depression is also associated with higher rates of cardiac death, thus, to improve cardiac prognosis, depression and stress must be managed. As per the author, Along with antidepressant medicine, psychotherapy and social support can greatly assist patients to overcome stress and depression.

The relationship between depression and heart diseases was also established by Connerney, et al. 2001 that suggested that depression is not only common in patients who had MI but is also commonly reported among clients who had undergone coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) and is found to affect the recovery of these patients. Further, Guijoan, et al. 2007 did a cross-sectional study to study the relationship between depression and autonomic dysfunction and established that depression can worsen health outcomes among heart failure patients and can even increase mortality.Rumsfeld, et al. 2005 studied patients with acute MI complicated by heart failure and found that depression and stress are not only common to occur in these cases rather they act as the major risk factor for all-cause mortality, cardiovascular death and prolonged hospitalisation. Thus, to improve survival or reduce hospitalisation, it is essential to manage depression and stress among patients of the cardiac department.

As per a recent article byChauvet-Gelinier & Bonin, 2017, stress, anxiety and depression are common among people with cardiovascular diseases and exert a negative impact on people' recovery and health outcomes. Thus, by managing these issues through positive psychology and involving people in social activities can greatly reduce their stress and depression and may improve cardiac outcomes. Kemp, et al.2003 also emphasised on beneficial impact of enhancing social support among cardiac patients as they found poor social support to be related with high morbidity and mortality.

Research methodology

Research methodology is the process of data and information collection, analysing it and reaching the final conclusion using a systematic plan for conducting research (Flick, 2015). On the basis of adopted methodologies, research studies can be primary, secondary or mixed and also qualitative or quantitative studies. A research study in which first-hand information is collected directly by conducting surveys, experiments, interviews etc is called a primary research. In this method raw, new or fresh information is collected while in another method; second-hand information is used to conduct research. Secondary research is one in which already present information from journals, books, websites, etc are being collected and analysed.

Qualitative research methodology is collecting non-numerical data and analysing it to reach the final conclusion. It is an exploratory method to identify the underlying opinion or cause and is done using semi-structured or unstructured techniques of observations, group discussions, etc. On the other hand, quantitative research methodology is collection and analysis of numerical data that involves facts and figures. In this method, numerical data is converted to useful statistics to reach final conclusions (Flick, 2015).

Thus, secondary research would be conducted in which the existing information on the incidence of depression and stress among cardiac disease patients would be qualitatively analysed and it would assess whether involving cardiac disease patients in social activities can help in combating their stress and depression and improve their health outcomes. For this, studies and researches conducted since the year 2000 would be searched usingPubMed or Medline databases and an integrated narrative review method would be used for the research.

Ethical consideration

While conducting a research, it is highly recommended to adopt an ethical practice where any kind of harm is not done to any individual or group of people. The research must be conducted using acceptable behaviours and any unacceptable behaviour must be avoided. Thus, in this research study, honesty would be adopted where all data, reports, procedures and methods would be appropriately mentioned and any falsifying or misrepresentation of data would be avoided. The reader would not be deceived and integrity would be maintained. All secondary data sources used for the research would be appropriately referenced and if any conflict of interest exists, it would be declared clearly. Clear and unambiguous language would be used to avoid any confusion or deception. Further, the personal bias would be kept minimum (Resnik, 2011).

In this research, it would also be ensured to avoid errors and negligence along with doing a careful and critical evaluation of peer work.  A good record of research activities like research design, data collection, etc would be done. Moreover, data, tools and resources would be honestly shared and the research would be open to criticism and new ideas. Any unpublished data or results will not be used without permission and patents, copyrights and other intellectual properties would be well honoured. In fact, all contributions to the research would be acknowledged.  Finally, as a part of social responsibility, social good would be promoted and any kind of social harm through research or advocacy would be avoided.

Validity and reliability

It would be ensured in this research that the collected data is valid and reliable and it also produces valid and reliable data. Validity means accurately measuring what is supposed to be measured and reliability is the consistency or stability of results. Thus, the research would be conducted in a focused manner to analyse as per the goals and objectives. Further, it would be done in a reliable way so that same results are done every time, the research is repeated.

Data analysis

The collected data for the research must be analysed using effective methods to obtain useful and usable information. In this research, data would be collected in a secondary manner from existing journals, articles and studies and then the collected data would be analysed using thematic method to reach useful conclusion (Sullivan-bolyai, et al. 2014)

Dissemination of results

Once the research study is conducted and results are established, the study would be published to disseminate the result. Both the soft copy and hard copy of the research would be generated and kept in records. Further, the soft copy of the research study would be sent to everyone involved in the research via email.

Budget

Usually, a huge amount is required for conducting research studies where the different amount is required in different stages of research. In order to the literature review, it is required to access numerous books, journals, articles, websites; etc that may cost huge amounts. Further, their analysis may also need a certain amount. However, as this is academic research, as such it would not cost any amount.

References

1. Chauvet-Gelinier, J.C. and Bonin, B., 2017. Stress, anxiety and depression in heart disease patients: A major challenge for cardiac rehabilitation. Annals of physical and rehabilitation medicine, 60(1), pp.6-12.

2. Connerney, I., Shapiro, P.A., McLaughlin, J.S., Bagiella, E. and Sloan, R.P., 2001. Relation between depression after coronary artery bypass surgery and 12-month outcome: a prospective study. The Lancet, 358(9295), pp.1766-1771.

3. Flick, U., 2015. Introducing research methodology: a beginner's guide to doing a research project. Sage

4. Guinjoan, S.M., Castro, M.N., Vigo, D.E., Weidema, H., Berbara, C., Fahrer, R.D., Grancelli, H., Nogués, M., Leiguarda, R.C. and Cardinali, D.P., 2007. Depressive symptoms are related to decreased low-frequency heart rate variability in older adults with decompensated heart failure. Neuropsychobiology, 55(3-4), pp.219-224.

5. Jiang, W., Krishnan, R.R. and O’Connor, C.M., 2002. Depression and heart disease. CNS drugs, 16(2), pp.111-127.

6. Kemp, D.E., Malhotra, S., Franco, K.N., Tesar, G. and Bronson, D.L., 2003. Heart disease and depression: Don't ignore the relationship. Cleveland Clinic journal of medicine, 70(9), pp.745-761.

7. Resnik, D.B., 2011, May. What is ethics in research & why is it important. In The national.

8. Rumsfeld, J.S., Jones, P.G., Whooley, M.A., Sullivan, M.D., Pitt, B., Weintraub, W.S. and Spertus, J.A., 2005. Depression predicts mortality and hospitalization in patients with myocardial infarction complicated by heart failure. American heart journal, 150(5), pp.961-967.

9. Sullivan-bolyai, S., Bova, c. And Singh, m.d., 2014. Data-collection methods. Nursing research in canada-e-book: methods, critical appraisal, and utilization, p.287