RECENT ASSIGNMENT

Assessment 1: Reviewing and critiquing the methodologies of
Health Promotion Interventions
GUIDELINES FOR THE ASSIGNMENT
Due date: 3 April 2020 @2pm Weighting: 30% of Semester total
Background:
This semester you will be required to do three pieces of assessment. Assessments all build upon each other, so it is suggested you should choose a health promotion area that is of interest to you as I highly recommend that you focus on the same topic for each assessment.
Getting started:
Step one: choosing a topic
Finding and critiquing literature of your chosen topic is the first step in helping you to design a health promotion intervention (which you will be required to do in assessment 2). For this first assessment, you are required to conduct a review and critique of four articles on a topic of your choice to be approved by the course co-ordinator. This assignment is designed to help develop your critical appraisal skills for health promotion evaluation methodologies.
Here are some ideas:
Smoke-free policies in universities
Community gardens
Reducing sedentary behavior in workplaces
Smoking cessation in vulnerable (pregnant women) or hard to reach (e.g., regional/rural) populations
Improving mental health in the workplace
Psychosocial interventions for cancer survivors
Once you have decided on your health promotion topic you will need to find, tabulate and critically appraise FOUR high quality articles that are interventions for your topic. These articles will be seminal to the design of your intervention. Remember that all four articles must report on the evaluation of an intervention targeting your chosen area, you will want to consider grouping your articles by intervention type/modality, setting and/or target group. Grouping by at least one of these characteristics will make your critique and decision making more focused.
Step two: Conducting a literature search
You will need to conduct a systematic search of databases (available through UQ library) such as PubMed, Web of Science OR PsychInfo to find intervention articles on your chosen area. You will need to include the search strategy in your report so make sure you keep a copy.
Think through what will be the key terms you will use in your search. This is where careful consideration of intervention type/modality (e.g., policy, telephone, print materials, Internet, face to face, etc), setting (e.g., university, workplaces, community, schools etc) and target group (women, men, blue-collar workers, employees with type 2 diabetes, rural school children etc) needs to be evident. This is NOT a systematic review but these are the key things you need to think through when conducting database searches to find literature most relevant. Remember focusing your search will enable you to identify four articles that are comparable and will directly inform the design of your intervention (Assessment 2), and thus you evaluation plan (Assessment 3).
For more tips please see UQ library https://web.library.uq.edu.au/research-toolstechniques/search-techniques
Once you have completed your search, read the abstracts of the articles to determine which four articles to include in your review, based on your topic.
Task: Review and critically appraise the four articles using appropriate critical appraisal tools.
Step 1. You will also need to select the appropriate appraisal tool/s for your chosen papers. (Please see Links on Course Reading list for critical appraisal tools. Read the papers and complete the critical appraisal for each of the papers. This is for you to become familiar with the papers and to understand the strengths and limitations of each paper that you will include in your discussion conclusion section.
Step 2. Collating and tabulating relevant information from your selected two papers. Use a table to help guide you in reviewing your chosen articles (An example of a table format is given below, and depending on the topic and methodologies of the articles you have chosen you may need to adapt or add to the table).
Step three: Extracting data
Once you have selected the studies to include in your literature review, extract and tabulate relevant information. Please take note of the definitions provided below the table (this will help in guiding the type of information to extract into the table). This table is to be included in your assignment under RESULTS.
Table template to help guide you in reviewing your chosen four intervention articles. Example Table
Please take note of the definitions provided below the table, these will help guide the type of information to extract.
Reference:
Study population Intervention detail Intervention Content Intervention Evaluation Intervention outcomes
Target group:
n:
Mean age:
Gender:
Recruitment:
Attrition: Type of intervention:
Setting:
Delivery Modality:
Duration:
Contact Intensity: Theory:
Strategies/components: Study Design:
Primary outcome measure:
Other measures:
Length of follow-up:
Ix Fidelity: Change in outcome:
Author’s conclusion:
Definitions of Terms used in the Table
Study Population
Target group: Define e.g. overweight obese females, colon cancer patients, adolescents
Sample Size (n): Number of participants included in the study
Age: Mean age or age range of participants
Gender: Percent of female or male participants that participated in the study Recruitment: How were participants recruited into the study?
Attrition: How many participants withdrew from the study before end of intervention?
Intervention Detail
Setting: Where does intervention take place?
Delivery modality: How was the intervention delivered (policy implementation, face-toface, telephone, email etc)?
Duration: How long was the intervention delivered for?
Contact intensity: How many contacts did the intervention aim to deliver?
Intervention Content
Theory: What was the theoretical basis of the intervention? (please refer to lecture 7 from PUBH 7035 as needed for theory recap)
Strategies: The content of the interventions, what strategies or techniques or components are used in the intervention to support changes in outcome.
Intervention Evaluation
Study design: What was the methodological approach e.g., randomised controlled trial, quasi-experimental, pre-post design?
Primary outcome measure: What were the measurement tools used to assess the primary outcome?
Other measures: Were there any other measurement tools used to assess other outcomes e.g., self-efficacy, weight?
Intervention fidelity: Was the intervention delivered as intended?
Length of follow-up: At what time points were outcomes measured following the baseline assessment?
Intervention Outcomes
Change in outcome: Were there significant intervention effects (ie, improvements) found for the primary outcome either between study groups (ie, significant improvement in the intervention group compared to the control group) or within study groups (ie, significant improvement within the intervention and/ or control group), or within the target community? The data abstracted here is going to depend on the type of methodology used to evaluate the intervention. (For example, if it is a policy intervention, it may be compliance with the goals of the policy, or it may be percentage of population aware of the policy).
Authors Conclusion: What did the authors conclude about the intervention?
Step four: Literature review write up
Write up your assignment as follows, using these headings:
Introduction (350 words): Briefly describe your topic, including a rationale for why it is important to focus on your chosen health promotion topic. Outline the aim of the paper including a clear purpose statement and discuss the importance of taking an evidence-based approach to intervention development.
Methods (150 words): Describe the procedures you followed in your database search, including your Search Strategy and Data Sources. Please indicate here which critical appraisal tool/s you have used and why.
Results: This will be your table.
Discussion and Conclusion (1000 words):
• Summarise the overall findings across the four articles you identified (ie, how many of the four studies reported significant improvements in the outcome in favour of the intervention group?).
• Critique the findings. Were outcomes similar or different across studies? If so, why might this be? Consider: Did the interventions work as intended? How do you know? Consider study characteristics including appropriateness of study design, sample size and outcome measures, implementation characteristics including fidelity (ie, was the intervention delivered as intended), and length and duration of the interventions.
• What were the main strengths and limitations of each study design?
• Be sure to include an overall conclusion that summarises your critical appraisal of these studies. What gaps did you identify, where further work needs to be done? Provide recommendations for how these interventions could be improved.
Assessment formatting requirements
Please ensure that your assignment complies with the following formatting specifications.
Word count: 1500 words
Font: 12 point, Times New Roman only
Margins: All margins at least 2.0cm
Line spacing: 1.5 line spacing
Tables: Required tables are not included in word count
References: APA style preferred. Include reference list at the end of your assessment. Refer to UQ Library Style Guide https://guides.library.uq.edu.au/referencing/apa7
(Use of Endnote for managing references is highly recommended)
Filename and type: Assessments must be submitted as a Word document. Save the file with the filename using this format: LastName_7036_ Assessment1
Submission: Via Turnitin submission link from Blackboard (‘Assessment’ – ‘Assessment 1 – Literature Review)
You can submit more than once to check for originality. However, the most recent submission before the due date and time will be the one that is marked.
Please make sure you read the student declaration when you submit your assessment.
Late submissions will not be accepted without prior approval https://my.uq.edu.au/information-and-services/manage-myprogram/exams-and-assessment/applying-extension .