NSG2NMR Assessment 1 (2019): Research Question, Paradigm, Design

This assignment presents a research question exploring the burden on informal caregivers of older adults with memory complaints in Singapore. The research employs a qualitative paradigm and a cohort design to characterize caregivers' and patients' profiles associated with high care provision burden. The student justifies the selection of a qualitative approach, emphasizing its suitability for generating descriptive narratives, and the cohort design for examining links between health outcomes and risk factors. The study plans to use retrospective data to draw conclusions about the challenges faced by caregivers of elderly Singaporeans with cognitive decline, aiming to inform interventions that support caregivers in their roles and mitigate the health risks associated with caregiving. The paper references relevant literature to support the methodological choices.

Proposed Research Question
Do older adults with memory complaints burden informal caregivers in Singapore? The research
will seek to characterize caregivers’ and patients’ profiles associated with high scores of care
provision burden on self identified carers of patients in different stages of cognitive decline in an
Asian Clinical sample.
Research Paradigm and Design
The research paradigm will be qualitative while the research design will be cohort. Qualitative
paradigm is defined as a research approach that is subjective where findings are obtained in
written format contrarily to numerical format. Qualitative paradigm undertakes a systematic
scientific inquiry with an aim to build a description or narrative to inform the person undertaking
the research (Graneheim, Lindgren, & Lundman, 2017). According to Salvador (2016)
qualitative research basically organizes data into categories and identifies relationships among
the categories bringing out the meaning from the research context. The cohort research design
primarily involves establishing links between health outcomes and risk factors. A cohort study is
defined as an investigative research to determine cause of an event or disease and establish the
links that exist between risk factors and patient’s health outcomes (Donnelly, Safford, Shapiro,
Baddley, & Wang, 2017). Cohort studies can be prospective or retrospective. Retrospective
cohort studies already existing data to identify risk factors present to particular conditions while
prospective cohort studies are carried out and planned for the future period of time (Donnelly et
al., 2017).
Reasons for Adopting Qualitative Paradigm and Cohort Design
The qualitative and cohort design will be an appropriate approach to understanding and
characterizing the burden on informal caregiver in order to outline types of interventions that can
better support them in their role. Secondly, the research will seek to detail the health risks
associated with informal caregivers providing care to elderly Singaporeans with a declining
cognitive. Another reason for this approach is that the research will use retrospective data to
examine the situation and draw conclusions.

References
Donnelly, J. P., Safford, M. M., Shapiro, N. I., Baddley, J. W., & Wang, H. E. (2017).
Application of the Third International Consensus Definitions for Sepsis (Sepsis-3)
Classification: a retrospective population-based cohort study. The Lancet infectious
diseases, 17(6), 661-670.
Graneheim, U. H., Lindgren, B. M., & Lundman, B. (2017). Methodological challenges in
qualitative content analysis: A discussion paper. Nurse education today, 56, 29-34.
Salvador, J. T. (2016). Exploring quantitative and qualitative methodologies: A guide to novice
nursing researchers. European Scientific Journal, 12(18).