Question 3
Participants of this study were consider “healthy, regularly
menstruating women aged 18-44”.
Exclusion criteria included current use of oral contraceptives or use
during the past 3 months; regular intake of vitamin and mineral supplements or
certain prescription medication; pregnant or breastfeeding during the past 6
months; and diagnosis of chronic medical conditions. Additionally, women with a BMI lower than 18 and above 35
were excluded. How might these
exclusion criterions be limitations to the study? What could be done to overcome these limitations?
posted by Kaitlin Faletti @ 6:53 AM
12 comments
12 Comments:
These exclusion criterions strengthened the internal validity of the study but also limited the generalizability of the study. I hesitate to suggest relaxing the exclusion criteria in subsequent studies because one of the strengths is its internal validity. Perhaps, providing a clear message that this study may not be applicable across all lifecycles is the best solution to overcome the study’s limitations. Another strategy might be noting that the health of newborns is related to the health of their mothers and that higher intakes of F/V among healthy, regularly menstruating women may have an indirect relationship on the health of future generations.
Those are very strict exclusion crierions, granted they wanted it to be a very specific and truthful study, it excluded a lot of women. I like how Lynetta stated that it limited the generalizability of the study. Very good point. A way to overcome some of the limitations would be to take out some of the criteria or lessen it. For instance, I feel like they should be specific about chronic medical conditions and not exclude ALL of them.
I think that these exclusions criteria will probably exclude a great deal of women but I think and agree that the criteria is important for the validity of the study. I will also have to agree with Carly that an easy way to overcome these limitations is to make the exclusion criteria less strict. I think this would help is making the study more generalizable to all women between the ages of 18-44. I do not know how much lessening the criteria would altering the validity of the study but I do think it would be a better representation of women.
Sarah S said...
I think the exclusion criteria are necessary to really get a sense of how a healthy, naturally menstruating female is affected by f/v intake. However, as Lynetta said, they probably limit the study's generalizability among many females, as many young women use contraceptives. There's probably not a great way to lessen these limitations, but being explicit in who these results can actually apply to would be helpful. They could possibly do a study without the exclusion criteria and make generalized findings for the general population. They could then compare the results to see if there was a difference and find further research opportunities.
I like what Sarah suggested about conducting a study that reflected a more general population. It'd be interesting to learn how the results differed. OR perhaps conducting the study for another population group like postmenopausal women.
The exclusion criteria does limit its generalization, but this cannot really be changed. If these women were not excluded, the limitation of the study would be there were confounding factors impacting the study. Additional studies would have to be done to overcome this limitation that look at these excluded populations
These are pretty strict criteria. I believe that opening the study up to those using oral contraceptives and to those with varying ranges of BMIs would have shown much different outcomes. They could have included them and compared the groups, or a future study could look at only those using oral contraceptives, or only those with a BMI greater than 35. This would show how different factors can influence different antioxidants in the body.
I understand why they would limit their population so much. It is necessary to really be able to see the results. If they included everyone it would be hard to say that the results were due to the consumption of the fruits and vegetables. However, like most of you have said it makes it hard to generalize the results to the rest of the population.
I like Courtney's idea of opening the study up to women with varying BMI's and to those who use oral contraceptives. It could be beneficial to see how these factors effect the end results.
The exclusions cover a large group of people which may be taking away from the ability to generalize this study for a population. I liked Carly's idea of being more specific about the chronic medical conditions to exclude. There is a need however in this study for the exclusions in order to get accurate results to determine the affects of fruits and vegetables.
I think this would limit the study because these limitations exclude many people I know, and I would think a large percentage of the population. Many of my friends and family are on some kind of hormone modulator including contraceptives or estrogen patches, and I don't think the majority of Americans are regularly taking vitamin/mineral supplements (I can't even remember to take mine regularly). The exclusion of medical conditions would rule out a lot of people. Perhaps they could have included another group, such as women on hormone modulators.
I like how Aria mentioned that many people do not remember to take their supplement everyday. Those who do remember are most likely pretty health conscious and are choosing different foods than those who do not take supplements. If supplement users, non users, and occasional users diets were included, I am sure the outcome of the study would be much different.
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