Alcohol Consumption among First-Time Mothers and the Risk of Preterm Birth
The research paper was based on an observational study that cumulatively harnessed data from pregnant women of gestation week 15 from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study. The main research method employed was the use of Questionnaires. The questionnaires contained questions inquiring on the usage of alcohol based on the number of times per week, per month or at no time. This method was very significant to the study because the data required was easily obtained from a large number of subjects in a short period. Questionnaires thus make it easy to analyze, compare and contrast the results of a research paper to other researches conducted on the same topic (Saczynski, et al, 2013).
The data gathered from the research was quantitative, numerical, objective and conclusive. For instance, in Table 1, the number of mothers who had never consumed alcohol before the pregnancy was 3,040 which is 7.7% of the total 44,300 mothers used in the study. The data as displayed from the table is structured for easier analysis and more so, it’s statistical. Other 381 mothers, 0.9% of the total, gave no response. The research hence, was based on quantitative data that answered the question “How many?” Once the quantitative data was gathered, it was analyzed using two analytic strategies; the multivariable logistic regression analyses and a sensitivity analyses. Alcohol variables were created based on two time periods in Table 1 and the ANOVA software was used to analyze the data.
Questionnaires, however, are limited to know when a respondent is lying or basically being biased (Saczynski, et al, 2013). For instance, there is no way to validate the 7.7% who claimed to never have taken alcohol prior to their pregnancy. On the other hand, the ANOVA test used for analyses has a limitation. The test assumes that both samples used in the test are simple random samples. That they in no way affect each other and are taken from a larger population hence not biased. However, this assumption can be more appropriate in a controlled study. The main population used in the study was the pregnant “drinkers” and the “non-drinkers” were excluded. The mothers who confessed in the Questionnaire to never have consumed alcohol were isolated from the study. This is because the focus was to identify the risk of preterm delivery among prime gravidas due to alcohol consumption.
References
Saczynski, J. S., McManus, D. D., & Goldberg, R. J. (2013). Commonly Used Data-Collection Approaches in Clinical Research. The American journal of medicine, 126(11), 946-950.