Assignment: Article Review and Critique - SOCW 6301 Week 10

Article Analysis

This student has selected an article for which to provide analysis, considers treatment retention among individuals with co-occurring substance abuse disorder (SUD) and mental health conditions with consideration to gender differences. The objective of this study is to examine treatment in private residential treatment facilities which provide treatment for co-occurring SUD and mental health conditions and the retention of individuals in treatment with respect to gender differences.

The research design that is used in this study is quantitative in nature. Quantitative research is one which studies the phenomena in question through the gathering of quantifiable data and performing various statist able computations on it. The methods which are used in the quantitative studies include questionnaires and surveys (Kumar, 2019). The results of such study designs are shown in numerical form. The instruments that are used in the research are the first indicator that this is a quantitative research design. It is quantitative because there is used of various indexes which have numerical responses. The tools that are used include the Addiction Severity Index (ASI), and the University of Rhode Island Change Assessment (URICA) (Choi et al., 2015). Each of these has an associated score. There is also the use of numerical data on the treatment retention which is corrected from the admissions departments in the selected institutions. The analysis of the data also shows its quantitative nature. The data is analyzed using bivariate analysis and Cox regression. All of these show the quantitative nature of the study.

Sampling Method

The sample for this study consisted of 1317 individuals who came to the selected three treatment centers to seek the residential treatment. All these individuals had come to the treatment centers voluntarily. It is also important to note that the data was drawn only from the LOS and the baseline interviews that were taken during the treatment days. The sampling method that was used in this study is a convenience sample as well as a voluntary one (Humphries, 2017). It is a nonprobability sample as everyone in the population did not have an equal chance of being a participant. The participants that were selected are those who accepted to be part of the study and those who were in the three private for-profit treatment centers. The three private residential facilities that were selected are the ones which provide mental health treatment services and substance abuse in the areas of Malibu, Tennessee, Memphis, California, and palm springs. The three centers which were used for sampling are run by the California Foundation Recovery Network (FRN) (Choi et al., 2015). The recipients which are in the three facilities form whom the sample is selected come from both Canada and the United States.

Generalizability

The generalizability of the data which is collected from this study is extremely low. The first reason that this student would say this is that the three facilities which are used in the study are run by one organization. This means that there are internal organizational factors which may contribute to the retention by the patients (Yegidis et al., 2018). The second reason is that this is a for-profit facility and given the costs of such facilities, it is likely that it attracts only the high-end clientele. The conclusions which have been made are only viable when one is considering the private facilities only and in high end neighborhoods. It is wrong for the conclusion to be made of the whole population of those who seek treatment based on the three institutions only. The demographic characteristics of those who were used are also not representative when carefully look at. The average age for such a population is 36.6 which may not be indicative of the population average. At the same time, the sample that was selected consisted mainly of Caucasians further making the data leaning towards one part of the population. In the united states, there are minority groups who are also admitted into such facilities but this data that is collected does not represent their position. It is wrong to make such conclusions when minority groups are not factored into the study (Bullock Little, & Millham, 2017). Because FRN is a for-profit body, it is likely that there is a bias when it comes to income of those undergoing treatment. There are other facilities in the country which have lower costs and in neighborhoods which are more diverse. At the same time, there are non-profit bodies which are there.

Limitations and Recommendation

There are several limitations which are seen in the research making it less reliable. The first one its hat the participation is voluntary and is in three centers which are run by the same institution. There are internal organizational factors that could lead to the retention levels for those in these facilities. The use of the FRN facilities denies the study the opportunity to investigate other facilities and have a result which can be easily applied to the entire population. The credibility is also affected by the fact that the sample is made up of mainly Caucasians (Choi et al., 2015). The use of a Caucasian population means that the results can only be applied to such and not the entire population. One of the things that can be done to improve the sampling plan of the study to address these limitations is the use of a sample from a diverse number of facilities. The facilities should be both for-profit and non-profit. The diversity of the facilities will help in capturing a more representative sample (Humphries, 2017).

References

Yegidis, B. L., Weinbach, R. W., & Myers, L. L. (2018). Research methods for social workers (8th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson.

Choi, S., Adams, S. M., Morse, S. A., & MacMaster, S. (2015). Gender differences in treatment retention among individuals with co-occurring substance abuse and mental health disorders. Substance use & misuse, 50(5), 653-663.

Kumar, R. (2019). Research methodology: A step-by-step guide for beginners. Sage Publications Limited.

Humphries, B. (2017). Re-thinking social research: anti-discriminatory approaches in research methodology. Routledge.

Bullock, R., Little, M., & Millham, S. (2017). The relationships between quantitative and qualitative approaches in social policy research. In Mixing methods: qualitative and quantitative research (pp. 81-99). Routledge.