An Analysis of Standford et al.’s Study

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An Analysis of Sanford, Townsend-Rocchicciolli, Horigan, & Hall’s Study A Process of Decision Making by Caregivers of Family Members With Heart Failure A research critique submitted by Thelma Augustin, Melody Alexander, Ashley Breaux, Nissa Fisher, Kamaria Harris, Thao Huynh, Jeris Jensen, Leslie King, and Susan Livengood, Master of Science in Nursing Research College of Nursing 2012

An Analysis of Standford et al.’s Study

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Design Sanford, Townsend-Rocchicciolli, Horigan, & Hall (2011) identified this qualitative study’s research tradition as following the grounded theory method to investigate the caregiver’s of heart failure (HF) patient’s decision making process.
The group or population of interest does not have enough description which allows the study validate whether there is enough samples for the study.

An Analysis of Standford et al.’s Study

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The setting, while appropriate for the research questions, was limited in being able to recruit enough participants. In order to qualify as a participant, the caregiver had to be related to a patient with HF, must provide one activity of daily living, and /or assist the care recipient with two instrumental activities of daily living and not be paid for their services. The demographics data that were collected included caregiver gender, marital status, ethnicity, employment, income, living arrangement, and relationship to patient with HF, but it did not include the ability of the caregiver to make decision (e.g. educational background). The type of sampling strategy used in this study is theoretical sampling of pertinent data. It was used to elaborate and refine categories in the emerging theory until saturation was obtained (Charmaz, 2006). According to Polit & Beck, theoretical sampling as a strategy involves the selection of “incidents, slices of life, time periods, or people on the basis of their potential manifestations or representation of important theoretical constructs”. In this study, there