Journal Review Question 2022

Running Head: JOURNAL REVIEW
JOURNAL REVIEW
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

1JOURNAL REVIEW
Question 1`
The study by Nowak et al (2016), was undertaken because fatigue is a common issue faced in
primary care in the developing and developed countries. Physicians have been searching the
accurate medication to reduce fatigue and popularly iron, vitamin D and several other nutritional
supplements are being used. However, there is no concrete evidence that vitamin D is a treatment
for fatigue, which causes uncertainty in the scientific literature. This study will help in
understanding the actual treatment or vitamin D for the prevalence of fatigue.
Question 2
The aim of this study is to test a single dose of vitamin D in individuals with vitamin D
deficiency for 30 days who report being fatigued easily. They have no other health issue other
than fatigue. This study will help in explaining the role of vitamin D in preventing and treating
fatigue.
Question 3
The study participants were going through fatigue and they were enrolled through medical
outpatients divisions in a hospital. They included people who were healthy and had no medical
history of infections and chronic disease. They were healthy individuals between 20-50 years and
had a BMI of 18-25 kg/m2. They matched the population of healthy adults as the BMI range was
an inclusion criteria.
Question 4
The study design was double-blinded randomized controlled trial under the clinical guidelines
and efficient practice after taking the consent of participants. The characteristic of this study is

2JOURNAL REVIEW
that the participants and the researchers are unaware of the results they will be getting as it is
more mechanical.
Question 5
The overall outcome in the 4th week showed that the fatigue assessment scale had a lower score
indicating less fatigue in participants who were taking vitamin D in the primary endpoint. The
secondary endpoint showed that the follow up of these participants showed a raise in their energy
level. It was observed that the participants with vitamin D had a significant decrease in their
parathyroid hormone.
Question 6
Sufficient implications for clinical practice were discussed in this study as participants with
hypersensitivity to vitamin D, pregnancy or lactation, pulmonary or cardiovascular disease,
hepatic or renal disease, hypokalemia, malignancy, inflammation, bone disease, severe infection
and anemia were added in the exclusion criteria of the sample selection. People with such
conditions can become fatal if they are given vitamin D during the trial. Participants with a
history of being a part of a therapeutic trial were also not allowed as it would affect the result of
this study.
Question 7
The ethical considerations were addressed in this study because participants who were selected
for this study were told to give informed consent that they will be taking part in this research as it
is an essential protocol (Connelly, 2014). The ethical consideration that was not addressed was
that they were not given financial compensation for the participation.

3JOURNAL REVIEW
Question 8
This falls on level II in the hierarchy of evidence because the results were obtained from well-
designed randomized controlled trial. As this study was based on double blinded randomized
controlled trial who were an experimental group and it was followed by outcomes of interest (Li
et al., 2016).

4JOURNAL REVIEW

5JOURNAL REVIEW
References
Connelly, L. M. (2014). Ethical considerations in research studies. Medsurg Nursing, 23(1), 54-
56.
Li, G., Sajobi, T. T., Menon, B. K., Korngut, L., Lowerison, M., James, M., ... & Smith, E. E.
(2016). Registry-based randomized controlled trials-what are the advantages, challenges,
and areas for future research?. Journal of clinical epidemiology, 80, 16-24.
Nowak, A., Boesch, L., Andres, E., Battegay, E., Hornemann, T., Schmid, C., ... & Krayenbuehl,
P. A. (2016). Effect of vitamin D3 on self-perceived fatigue: A double-blind randomized
placebo-controlled trial. Medicine, 95(52).