CBT

Running head: POPULATION AND SAMPLING 2

POPULATION AND SAMPLING 2

Population and Sampling

Rebecca Faino

School of Psychology, Capella University

PSY-FP5201: Integrative Project

Howard Fero

May 12, 2022

The Setting

In Texas State, the public mental health services are provided by about 39 local mental health institutions of authorities that cover about 254 counties within this specific state. The local mental health authorities are considered to be the governmental organizations with the responsibility of providing various mental health services to qualified persons within the catchment areas of the local mental health authorities. Texas has taken a comprehensive redesign of a service system that focuses on using the standardized evaluation process to help identify the evidence-based services and support necessary to meet individuals with mental illness recovery needs. For this study, the area or the focus setting is the Shanty Healing Center.

The participants used in the study were selected from the Shanty Healing Center in Texas. These are the patients who had been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, eating, and somatoform disorders and were seeking treatment for their mental disorders. Shanty Healing Center is a residential treatment facility for adults who have a mental illness. This facility aims to provide a therapeutic living setting for adults diagnosed with schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, the border, or personality disorder. The facility used therapeutic approaches such as cognitive therapy, behavioral therapy, humanistic therapy, and life skills development.

The institution offers intense life skills, independent living support, and long-term care that includes multi-year care. The facility is developed for both individualized and community-oriented to help every incoming patient. Additionally, there is psychodynamic therapy, reality-based, mindfulness-based, existential therapy, and integrated life-skills individualized approaches. The organization has specialists like those who deal with bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and behavioral issues. The facility has an arrangement with the patients who have been prosecuted for criminal acts and requires court diversion via the mental health courts.

The population

The targeted population is defined as the group of individuals or study subjects who are similar in one or many ways and form the study's subject. The target population is the patients with specific mental disorders and the therapists who assist in educating these patients throughout the study process. The selected individuals for the study were the participants who had been confirmed to be having depression, anxiety, eating, and somatoform disorders. A total of 648 participants were selected to help in the research that aimed to investigate the role of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) in treating mental illness. These are adult outpatients, and the selected therapists help deliver mental health services to these patients. The adult patients are those who had been provided with the CBT for various conditions such as depression, anxiety, eating, and somatoform disorders after the termination of the treatment. The Patients who had completed the first five diagnostic sessions were included in the study.

The therapists are the healthcare providers employed at the Department of Clinical psychology at the Shanty Healing Center. The therapists in the facility must have at least a master's degree in Psychology and a minimum of 1-year full-time post-graduate training in CBT. These participants are the individuals who will have to receive approximately 30 hours of training in performing the interview. Two out of the eight selected therapists are expected to assist in supervising all cases.

The patients were to consent to the study if they were of ages 18 years and above, having been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, eating, and somatoform disorders after the termination of the treatment. These participants did not have a history of severe suicidal risk that necessitates immediate crises. The participants were not excluded based on their comorbid condition and were permitted to receive the CBT treatments during the study.

About half of the study population selected, i.e., 50.6 percent, are Caucasian, with 39.8 percent identifying themselves and the Latino group. Other individuals in the group are African Americans and Asians, who constitute 8.4 and 1.2 percent, respectively (von Brachel et al., 2019). The selected participants were previously diagnosed with depression, anxiety, eating, and somatoform disorders with the help of licensed therapists or clinicians using the usual clinical evaluation procedures.

Sampling

In the statistics, quality assurance, and the survey methodology; sampling is considered to be the selection of a subset of people from within the statistical population to help estimate the features of the whole population. In research, sampling assists in collecting the samples that represent the population in question (Prendergast et al., 2020). The sampling technique assists in the purposeful description of the selected participants and interview of the initial participants.

Sampling Design

A sample design refers to the definite plan of collecting samples from a given population. It is a procedure of selecting part of the population on which the research is performed hence ensuring that the conclusions from the study are generalized to the entire population of the targeted area. This study involves a quantitative study. Therefore, the most suitable is probability sampling which involves random selection. Random selection allows for stronger statistical internences about the whole group (Yadav et al., 2019). In this study, every participant involved has a chance for selection since the study involves quantitative research. The study aims to produce the outcomes that represent the whole population concerning how CBT is useful in treating mental illness.

Sampling Type

The type of probability sampling to be adopted for this study is the stratified sampling method and the purposive sampling method to help select the participants. The stratified sampling technique is used to select the sample size from the targeted population of 640 participants at Shanty Healing Center. The division of the population into smaller groups called the strata is the procedure called stratified sampling. The strata formation is based on the members' shared attributes or features (Fava & Belaise, 2018). The random sample of all the stratum is taken in the number percentage of the stratum's size compared to the population. The subsets are then pooled to form the random sample.

The purposive sampling method selects eight therapists from Shanty Healing Center. The researcher purposely targets a group of individuals who are considered reliable for the study. In this type of sampling type, the selected participants to take part in the study will be given equal chances of being selected to help achieve the study's objectives (Stratton, 2019). Therefore, a random sampling number is used, and in this case, 648 participants are used.

Sample size

The sample size is the number of observations or replicates to include in a statistical sample. This is an important feature in research since it is used to make inferences concerning the chosen population from a sample. Approximately 648 former patients who had been treated and were on cognitive behavioral therapy for various mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder were randomly selected to represent the population in the selected facility of Shanty Healing Center. The CBT sample deemed eligible for the psychotherapy services through the use of the standardized evaluation process and for whom the participating therapists will be available will be referred for screening for the study's eligibility. Of The 648 individuals selected to participate in the study, there are 85.5 percent female and 15.5 male. The participants range from 19 to 74 years of age, with a mean age of 43.1.

References

Fava, G.A., & Belaise, C. (2018). Discontinuing antidepressant drugs: Lesson from a failed trial and extensive clinical experience. Psychother Psy-chosom. 87(5): 257–67.

Stratton, S. J. (2019). Data sampling strategies for disaster and emergency health research. Prehospital and disaster medicine, 34(3), 227-229.

Prendergast, K. S., Menz, M. H., Dixon, K. W., & Bateman, P. W. (2020). The relative performance of sampling methods for native bees: an empirical test and review of the literature. Ecosphere, 11(5), e03076.

von Brachel, R., Hirschfeld, G., Berner, A., Willutzki, U., Teismann, T., Cwik, J. C., ... & Margraf, J. (2019). Long-term effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy in routine outpatient care: a 5-to 20-year follow-up study. Psychotherapy and psychosomatics, 88(4), 225-235. DOI: 10.1159/000500188

Yadav, S. K., Singh, S., & Gupta, R. (2019). Sampling methods. In Biomedical Statistics (pp. 71-83). Springer, Singapore.