University Research Critique: Antenatal Care Awareness Study

This report presents a detailed critique of a research article titled "Awareness of Antenatal Care Importance among Saudi Pregnant Women in Madina." The critique evaluates the article's title, introduction, literature review, theoretical framework, research questions, methodology (including ethics, sampling, and data collection), data analysis, and conclusions. Strengths of the article include a clear title reflecting the study's objective and a well-structured abstract. The critique also identifies limitations, such as the merging of literature review and background information, and the lack of detail in the data collection strategy. The report assesses the research's rigor, transferability, and goodness, highlighting the study's significance in the context of maternal care in Saudi Arabia. Recommendations for improvement and future implications are also discussed.

Running Head: RESEARCH CRITIQUE
RESEARCH CRITIQUE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

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Name of the article: Awareness of Antenatal Care Importance among Saudi Pregnant Women in
Madina
Title and the Introduction of the Article
The objective of the study is to access the awareness among the pregnant women
attending antenatal clinic in Madina, Saudi Arabia about the antenatal care importance. The aim
of the study is clearly reflected in the title of the article and that is the strength of the paper
(Smith 2015). The title of the article gives a clear perspective of the target population and the
projected objective of the study to the readers. However, from the title, it is not clear what the
nature of the study is. Whether it is qualitative or quantitative study, is not mentioned in the title
and this can be considered as one of the limitation of designing of the title (Smith 2015). Habib
et al. (2017) mainly conducted a cross-sectional study which is highlighted in the abstract and
not in the title. The abstract of the research also contained a detailed overview of the important
points in the research like the objective, methods, data collection, results and collection and this
can be highlighted as one of the strength of the research in the domain of literature paper
representation (Smith 2015). The introduction of the study initiates with a brief description about
the importance of the antenatal care it a specific focus of the importance of the antenatal care in
the developing countries. The introduction or the background of the study gives a detailed insight
of the previously published literature in order to identify the research gap. The research gap is
highly significant under the context of Saudi-Arabia as it high rate of pregnancy related death
(UNICEF 2012). According to Smith (2015), a novel research is a one which is conducted over
any novel topic via highlighting the gaps in the literature.

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Literature Review and Theoretical Framework
In the paper, there is no separate section for the literature review. The background and the
review of the literature are merged under a single title, Introduction. This can be highlighted as
one of the limitations of the study as the readers gets two most important perspective of the study
under a single sub-heads. However, the literature review highlighted under the introduction
section a logical flow of writing. It initiates via throwing a brief overview about what is antenatal
care followed by its importance in pregnancy related outcome. The review of literature then
focuses on the brief statistics of adverse outcome related to pregnancy in order to stress over the
importance of the antenatal care. Then the literature goes into deep focusing the conditions of the
antenatal care in Saudi-Arabia in order to identify the research gap and the rationale of
conducting the research and thereby highlighting the philosophical underpinning of the study.
The research mainly highlighted that proper assessment of the antenatal care knowledge among
the pregnant women in Saudi-Arabia will be important be draft public health awareness program
(Habib et al. 2017). The authors mainly cited primary resources in order to conduct the review.
According to Smith (2015), citing primary resources increases the strength of the literature
review. While citing the figures, the authors focused on reliable sources like WHO. The end of
review gives a brief overview about the theoretical framework of the study. However, there are
no pictorial presentations of the same and this might create a problem to the reader (Lewis 2015).
Research Question, Ethics, Sampling and Data Collection
The research question clearly covers the scope of the study. The research objective covers
areas like mother’s education in antenatal care during the whole period of pregnancy and its role
in increasing the quality of life. The research objective also aim of analyze the adherence of
antenatal care depending upon the socio-economic status. Thus the research objectives underpin

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the philosophical pillars of the study. The main approach selected for the study is cross-sectional
research with face-to-face interview through random sampling. Habib et al. (2017) failed to
provide any detailed justification behind choosing the cross-sectional study design. According to
Parahoo (2014), it is the duty of the researcher to clearly justify the reason behind selection of
any particular research design. Parahoo (2014) stated that cross-sectional research design helps
to data with multiple variables under specific point of time and is important to access the overall
burden of the disease or health care knowledge over any particular population. Thus it can be
said that selection of the research approach was at per of the scope of the research (Parahoo
2014). Habib et al. (2017) used random sampling. Random sampling leads to unbiased selection
of the representative sample (Srinivasan 2013). Non-Saudi Arabian women were excluded from
the study as the research aims to access the level of knowledge among the Saudi-Arabian
women. Finally 1617 Saudi-Arabian women who are pregnant and healthy were selected. The
sample size is large enough in order to get an unbiased result (Marshall et al. 2013). Face-to-face
interview was selected for the research with 39 different questions. According to Duncan and
Fiske (2015), face-to-face interview helps to understand the participants’ attitude and behaviour
about any particular topic and thus is helpful in analysing Saudi-Arabian women’s level of
knowledge in antenatal care. The authors followed the proper ethical guidelines for conducting a
research with human subjects like obtaining ethical permission from the concerned authority,
notifying the participants about the scope of the research through informed consent and
maintaining the privacy and the confidentiality of the interview process. According to Holloway
and Galvin (2016), observance of the ethical guidelines of autonomy, privacy and confidentiality
are important aspect of qualitative research through interview questionnaire. The data collection
strategy like how the interview was conducted or where the interview was conducted and how

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the data were recorded and then simultaneously transcribed are not mentioned clearly in the
study and this can be highlighted as one of the limitations of the study (Holloway and Galvin
2016).
Data Analysis and Conclusion
The data analysis was by using statistical analysis system (SAS) through descriptive
statistics and analytical statistics. In descriptive statistics, standard deviation was used for
qualitative data and in analytical statistics, chi-square test was performed. A detailed elaboration
of the data analysis and its results was highlighted through tabular representation. Statistical
analysis is an important part of the cross-sectional research which is important in getting an
overall output of the result through unbiased calculation (Sepahi and Ajza Shokouhi 2013). The
results and outcomes are focused with the intent of the study. The results mainly highlighted
level of education, age in relation to level of attendance at the antenatal care. Followed by
perceptions of the respondents about the importance of the antenatal care, the results highlighted
lack of quality care support, lack of transportation, financial reasons and negligence as main
drivers behind lack of availing of antenatal care. The conclusion of the study was in sync with
the highlighted results. According to Merriam and Grenier (2019), it is the duty of the researcher
to stringently align the discussion of the research with the findings so that it becomes easier for
the reviewers to grab the flow of the research. Parahoo (2014) highlighted that it is the duty of
the researcher to highlight the limitations of his own research. According to Habib et al. (2017),
the main limitations of the study are time allocated for the study which restricted inclusions are
large sample size from more than two hospitals in both urban and rural areas. Another limitation
of the study is the researcher failed to highlight the perspective of the healthcare providers
towards delivering the knowledge of the antenatal care among the Saudi Arabian women and this

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might be helpful for designing the interview questionnaire. The implications of the findings of
the research were highlighted in the conclusion and according the further recommendations was
given for improving the overall scenario. For example, taking feedbacks form the women in
designing the educational program for antenatal care was cited under recommendation. Several
other recommendations are also provided by the research, however, Habib et al. (2017) failed to
provide any light towards future implications of the research and this can be considered as one of
the limitations of the study.
Critical Evaluation: Research Rigour
The credibility of the research can be highlighted from the nature of the study design, the
population included and the research approach. Like conducting a research among the Saudi-
Arabian women among antenatal care is something unique and crucial for the developing
countries (UNICEF 2018). The data is transferrable as it contained interview response of the
Saudi-Arabian women who are pregnant and is attending antenatal care. However, the perception
of the Saudi-Arabian women might not be helpful to analyse the perception of the women among
the other developing countries as Saudi Arabian women have different sets of cultural, spiritual
and religious thoughts might not coincide with the other women of the developing world (Karout
et al. 2013). The goodness of the research is however discussed under the perspective of the
importance of the proper maternal care service before and after pregnancy in Saudi Arabian via
referring to the adverse pregnancy outcome. The goodness of the outcome was also defined
through proper recommendation which might help to improve the overall scenario (Habib et al.
2017).

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References
Duncan, S. and Fiske, D.W., 2015. Face-to-face interaction: Research, methods, and theory.
Routledge.
Habib, H.M., Aljohani, A.M., Sebeih, S.H., Alshinqity, S.S., Tharwat, R.J., Elmaghrabi, S.A.,
Mahmoud, N.H. and Khan, M.I., 2017. Awareness of Antenatal Care importance among Saudi
pregnant women in Madina.
Holloway, I. and Galvin, K., 2016. Qualitative research in nursing and healthcare. John Wiley
& Sons.
Karout, N., Abdelaziz, S.H., Goda, M., AlTuwaijri, S., Almostafa, N., Ashour, R. and Alradi, H.,
2013. Cultural diversity: A qualitative study on Saudi Arabian women's experience and
perception of maternal health services. Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, 3(11), p.172.
Lewis, S., 2015. Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five
approaches. Health promotion practice, 16(4), pp.473-475.
Marshall, B., Cardon, P., Poddar, A. and Fontenot, R., 2013. Does sample size matter in
qualitative research?: A review of qualitative interviews in IS research. Journal of Computer
Information Systems, 54(1), pp.11-22.
Merriam, S.B. and Grenier, R.S. eds., 2019. Qualitative research in practice: Examples for
discussion and analysis. Jossey-Bass.
Parahoo, K., 2014. Nursing research: principles, process and issues. Macmillan International
Higher Education.

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Sepahi, A. and Ajza Shokouhi, M., 2013. The investigation of scientific methods of achieving
the goals of fifth development plan by Multivariate regression and factor analysis
technique. International Research Journal of Applied and Basic Sciences, 5.
Smith, J.A. ed., 2015. Qualitative psychology: A practical guide to research methods. Sage.
Srinivasan, R., 2013. Importance sampling: Applications in communications and detection.
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UNICEF. 2018. Maternal, Newborn & Child Survival- Saudi Arabia. Access date: 9th of Jan
2018. Retrieved from: https://data.unicef.org/wp-content/uploads/country_profiles/Saudi
%20Arabia/Maternal_SAU.pdf