Effect Of Integrated Intervention On Pregnancy Outcomes

Preamble The article has a first glimpse strength in terms of published medium. The journal Obstet Gynecol. has an impact factor of 4.368, which is generally considered good and reliable. That said, if the research and scientific findings were of great significance then the authors would have successfully published in journals of much higher review rigour and quality. Did the study address a clearly focused issue? In the abstract the authors explicitly state a working research question, that psycho-behavioural intervention reduces IPV recurrent during pregnancy and postpartum and improves birth outcomes in African American women. Although research into IPV is well documented, the effect of integrated intervention on pregnancy outcomes†¦show more content†¦So this is a suitable study design for the objectives of the research undertaken. Although the results may have been more robust if the participants were selected from a wider population, instead of only minorities from the District of Columbia. This would make the sample size more representative of the population of interest. Was the sample recruited in an acceptable way? The source of participants is clearly described in this paper. All subjects were recruited from six prenatal care sites in Washington, DC reporting IPV on the Abuse Assessment Screen. Selection bias can threaten the validity of a study. Indeed there is an inherent selection bias in this research in that all participants were recruited from the District of Columbia. Women were demographically eligible if they were 18 years or over, pregnant by no more than 28 weeks, a DC resident and English-speaking who had experienced IPV. For a retrospective cohort trial, the test sample represents a relatively large scale (n=1044), with good statistical power. In terms of the specific population being investigated, there is low risk of bias in this study. However there is no mention in the article if the sample is representative of an epidemiological sample, thus extending this cohort study to a multicentre trial would have empowered various aspects of the study, such as: 1) providing a more precise sample estimate which would more