Drug Checking Service in Music Festival: Critical Appraisal

Running head: DRUG CHECKING SERVICE
DRUG CHECKING SERVICE IN MUSIC FESTIVAL: CRITICAL APPRAISAL
Name of Student:
Name of University:
Author’s Note:

DRUG CHECKING SERVICE
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Day, N., Criss J., Gujral, S. K., John-Leader, F., Johnson, J., & Pit, S. (2018). Music festival
attendees' illicit drug use, knowledge and practices regarding drug content and purity: A cross-
sectional survey. Harm Reduction Journal, 15(1),1-7. doi: 10.1186/s12954-017-0205-7
Introduction
The major focus of the essay is to critically appraise the article title “Music festival
attendees' illicit drug use, knowledge and practices regarding drug content and purity: a cross-
sectional survey’. The essay has critiqued the article based on the research design, method used
and finding of the articles. The essay has highlighted the experience of the author in conduction
of the research paper. Additionally, concerning the finding of the article, it is used in the
reflection of the Emily case scenario. The essay has shown details about some of the enabler and
barrier of the finding of the research paper that has been used in uptake of the research article for
analysing the major objective of drug checking service among the young generation.
Authorship
The authors of the research paper Day et al. (2018) are afflicted from the School of
Medicine, University of Western Sydney, Sydney, and NSW. The author is expertise in public
health research. The primary strength of the author expertise is excellence in the comparative
analysis of data. The authors are qualified in public health. Thus, they have the right affiliations
and qualification for the conduction of drug testing service. It is declared by the author that there
is no conflict of interest in the research. The paper is , but no information was given regarding
the funding of the study.

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Research question and aim
The purpose of the research paper is to analyse the attitude and behaviour of people
towards drug checking service. The study was needed because, in Australia, drug checking
service has remained a contentious issue. Such research has not been conducted in a music
festival in Australia. So the author has done the research in a music festival in Australia which is
justified with the aim of the paper and focused on to study the potential impact of such service on
envisioned drug use attitude of peoples.
Research design
Both qualitative and quantitative research design has been used in paper, which is based
on observational data and statistical analyses. The article is the original study which has involved
primary data by a direct investigation with the peoples. The design is appropriate for the study
because the qualitative data collected by the author needs to be converted to quantitative in order
to get unbiased result (McCuske & Gunaydin, 2015) Statistical analysis gives relevant and
comparative result of the study (Little & Rubin, 2019). As because sample size is enormous such
method gives positive effect (Maronna et al., 2018).
Research method
The researcher has used survey methodology to conduct the research. They have selected
the participant of the music festival and investigated each of the attendees for collection of the
data. The selection was on a random basis and have included people of 18 to 30 years old. The
data is primary and qualitative. The method used is justified with the research question. For
analysing the data, the author has used pilot testing and SPSS. Such research methods tend to
give authentic and unbiased result (Hazzi & Maldaon, 2015). However, the major limitation of