Critical Appraisal of Research Article

Critical Appraisal of
Research Article

Contents
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................................3
Critical appraisal of the strength and weakness of methods..................................................................3
Critical appraisal of the strengths and weakness of results and discussion..........................................4
Ethical Considerations..............................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES..........................................................................................................................................8
JBI Critical Appraisal Checklist for Qualitative Research – Appendix................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Menopause can be defined as a natural phenomenon of stopping of a woman’s menstrual
cycle. Women generally experience menopause by the age of 52 but there can be certain factors
that can cause sudden menopause and these can include genetics or underlying conditions (Goh
and et. al., 2019). It has been found that in Australian women, menopause generally occurs at an
average age of 52.9 years and it involves various troubling symptoms such as night sweats, hot
flushes, psychological distress etc. In Australia, nearly 2.5% of the population comprises of
Indigenous people but they carry a burden of chronic illness. The respective report is a critical
appraisal of an article titled “Exploring Australian Aboriginal Women’s experiences of
menopause: a descriptive study”. The report includes a critical appraisal of the strength as well as
weakness of the methods that are used in the article. There is also a critical appraisal of the
strength as well as weakness of results as well as the discussion.
Critical appraisal of the strength and weakness of methods
The participants of the respective article comprised of Australian Aboriginal women in
order to develop a better understanding about the research topic. The method included recruiting
the participants in a regional center in Western Australia using the method snowball sampling.
The strengths of this particular sampling method are that it is easier to find subjects to be
included in the sample as they belong to reliable sources. Also, this method of sampling is cost
effective, which means that the researcher does not have to put in unnecessary amounts of cost in
order to form a sample. But there are also some weaknesses of snowball sampling, such as there
is a potential risk of bias in the sample because people usually refer those whom they know and
have similar traits (Snowball Sampling: Definition, Method, Advantages and Disadvantages,
2021). Apart from this, there are chances that the participants might show a lack of cooperation
and even refuse to be a part of the study.
In order to collect data for the article, the researcher used semi-structured interviews as
well as focus group discussions (Khajehei and Doherty, 2018). The major strength of these
methods was that these discussions utilized cultural technique that was more appropriate in order
to increase the overall engagement among the Aboriginal women. But the weaknesses of semi-
structured interviews is that they do not guarantee honesty from the participants and the open-

ended questions in the interviews are difficult to analyze. Also, sometimes, it can be difficult for
the researcher to compare the answers. But the strengths are that the researcher can prepare the
questions beforehand and they also encourage two-way communication between the participant
as well as the researcher. The researchers continued to ask questions from the Aboriginal women
until no new information was being obtained (Tapia and et.al., 2019). As far as focus group
discussions are concerned, the strengths are that the researcher can save a lot of time and can
measure the customer reactions easily and develop an in-depth understanding of their views. But,
some weaknesses of this method include the participants cannot speak up their opinions freely
and there are chances that the results obtained are biased to some extent.
It is mentioned that the researcher has used thematic analysis in order to analyze the data.
There are different strengths as well as weaknesses of the same (Koleade and et.al., 2020). For
example, the strengths of a thematic analysis include that the approach is unsupervised which
means that there is no need to set up categories in advance. Also, it is one of the most flexible
methods wherein the researcher can modify the same based on the requirements of the research.
The main goal of a thematic analysis is to identify the different themes or patterns in a research.
A good thematic analysis interprets the information in an effective manner. but there are also
certain disadvantages of thematic analysis such as reliability is one of the major concerns and
also, there might be a chance that the variation in data might get missed. Apart from this, it can
also make it difficult for the researcher to focus on a particular thing because there are different
patterns as well as themes that have to be analyzed.
Critical appraisal of the strengths and weakness of results and discussion
On analyzing the article, it was found that the Aboriginal Health workers were very
supportive as well as encouraging towards the respective research. They agreed to answer the
interview questions and not only this, they also encouraged other Aboriginal women to be a part
of the interview process (Quiroga, Larroy and González-Castro, 2017). This was one of the
results of the results and the other one was that most of the women who participated in the
interview process spoke freely about their views as well as experiences. Not only this, they were
also willing to talk about menopause and did not shy away from sharing their opinions as well as
experiences. Another strong point about the results of the research is that there were certain
themes that were emerged from the interviews and the group discussions were the symptoms