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Running Head:

QUANTITATIVE METHODS

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QUANTITATIVE METHODS

Quantitative methods

Name

Institution Affiliation

QUESTIONS TO ANSWER FROM THE BELOW DISCUSSION

Provide additional strategies for addressing challenges to obtaining a sample from the identified population

Suggest a different population that may be appropriate for addressing the research problem

Summarize the strengths of the data collection method identified in the post

Share any problems or concerns over the identified data collection method

Suggest an alternative data collection method and provide your rationale

DISCUSSION

This study aims at demonstrating that targeted questions before the application of PSA studies can improve the effectiveness of prostate cancer screening. The health care workers outline the screening guidelines, leaving the patient with the burden of deciding whether they can bear the risk of prostrate screening or not. Other concerns on who should go for screening, the best prostrate technique regarding the age and the expected repercussion, and the benefits of prostate screening still have no satisfying answer (Araujo et al., 2018). The use of targeted questions in history taking is an approach that can be used to improve prostate cancer screening.

The research will be conducted in a population with men between the age of 40 to 70 years of age. These will further be segregated into low risk, medium risk and high risk going by family history of prostate cancer. PSA levels are higher in older men than in younger men, meaning an increment in PSA levels (Araujo et al., 2018). Thus, taking the 40 years old men to represent the younger group and the 55years and above to represent the elderly would increase our accuracy. The target research population between the age of 40-70 years is appropriate for this research as in the area. There has never been under thirty-five who has ever been diagnosed with prostate cancer (Cuzick et al., 2014).

The research may encounter a few challenges during the sample collection process. First, the 40 years old men are young and active; if they had chanced to erect in the past few hours before the sample collection, there is a possibility of getting false-positive results (Ilic et al., 2018). False-positive results can tamper with our analysis, thus drawing the wrong conclusion. For this case, before collecting the sample, few questions will be posted privately to dig deep and get some more history of the person. The other challenge is fear of sample donation as they would not like to know or reveal their status due to the fear that prostrate cancer is deadly. Before the sample collection, there will be public civilization in the area concerned to eliminate some of the misconceptions that people hold on prostate cancer and emphasize prostate cancer screening. For instance, most people still believe that specialists do not diagnose cancer but generally declare (Cuzick et al, 2014). Other guidelines for refraining from activities that would raise PSA level, for instance, ejaculation, will also be outlined to ensure reliable data collection.

Several methods will be applied in our data collection work which include face to face interviews, laboratory studies of PSA and recorded observations. The face-to-face interview will be aiming to gather some background history of the person. In our case, face-to-face interviews will help collect entirely accurate information on the person’s history, unlike the questionnaire where the concerned can provide any answer as long as they answer the questions. After the brief interview, samples will be collected, taken to the laboratory, where they get to have experimented. After screening experiments and proper observation made to take the records as per results produced.

From the data analyses, new recommendations will be laid to make our cancer screening sessions more effective. Comparison on the data analysis of age 40s representing the young, 50s representing the middle age, and the 60-70 years of age will be made to bring out the group that is in danger of prostate cancer. This will go a long way in raising new strategies that may make prostate cancer screening more effective than before.

References

Araujo, F., & Oliveira, U., Jr (2018). Current guidelines for prostate cancer screening: A systematic review and minimal core proposal. Revista da Associacao Medica Brasileira (1992), 64(3), 290–296. https://doi.org/10.1590/1806-9282.64.03.290

Cuzick, J., Thorat, M. A., Andriole, G., Brawley, O. W., Brown, P. H., Culig, Z., Eeles, R. A., Ford, L. G., Hamdy, F. C., Holmberg, L., Ilic, D., Key, T. J., La Vecchia, C., Lilja, H., Marberger, M., Meyskens, F. L., Minasian, L. M., Parker, C., Parnes, H. L., Perner, S., … Wolk, A. (2014). Prevention and early detection of prostate cancer. The Lancet. Oncology, 15(11), e484–e492. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(14)70211-6

Ilic, D., Djulbegovic, M., Jung, J. H., Hwang, E. C., Zhou, Q., Cleves, A., Agoritsas, T., & Dahm, P. (2018). Prostate cancer screening with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 362, k3519. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k3519