Yeung Analysis Worksheet Medicine Assignment Paper

Yeung Analysis Worksheet
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July 20, 2017
What was the research question?

The research questions stated by the researchers is whether, Electro-acupuncture a better option to treat the pain of the patients with chronic low back pain as compared to standard exercise, or not?

What were the independent variables?

The independent variables in the study are the two treatments stated, which are (1) the Electro-acupuncture treatment, and the (2) standard exercise method

What was the dependent variable?

The dependent variables in the study are the patients disability and their perception of pain after the treatments have been done

What was the sample size and how was it chosen?

The sample population, which consists of 52 patients, was chosen randomly from patients which are experiencing chronic back pain

What was the experimental design and use of control group?

As stated by Yeung, Leung, and Chow (2003), the experimental design used was a method called “Blinded Prospective Randomized Control Study”. However, the researchers did not use a control group for the trials

Were the instruments of measurement shown to be reliable and valid?

The measurement instruments that were used to measure the pain and the disability were Numerical rating scale and Aberdeen LBP
Ordinal data was used when measuring the level of pain on the patients and level of disability

What data types were included?

The researchers employed data about the patients’ perception of pain, as measured by the tools stated above (NRS and A-LBP) and are ordinal in nature to fit the statistical tools used

Describe the statistics used, what they were used for, and the results.

Through the use of NRS and A-LBP, the researchers tried to find the mean and standard deviations of perception of patients as gathered from those tools. Aside from these two, t-test was also employed in order to make sure that the difference between the means obtained from each group, is “significant”.

What were the researchers’ conclusions? How did they answer the research question(s)?

Based from the data that the researchers obtained, they concluded that combining EA methods with the standard exercise procedures could significantly lower the feeling of pain for patients with LBP.

How was error controlled?

Some of the errors stated in the study were because of the limitations as stated by the authors. These include (1) limited knowledge with the mid- and long-term effects of the study and (2) lack of control group. Nevertheless, these errors/limitations were somehow mitigated with the study’s main desi...