Trouble Identifying Sampling Design

I am having trouble identifying the sampling design used in this study.

"Transplant recipients living in a Midwestern metropolitan area were recruited through clinician referral, direct mailings from patient advocacy groups, and brochures placed in outpatient clinics and pharmacies.

Inclusion criteria were a function- ing solid-organ transplant (ie, kidney, kidney/pancreas, pancreas, lung, liver, heart, or heart-lung), age 18 years or older, ability to read and write English, and willingness to attend classes.

To avoid the confounding effects of surgical recovery, patients were at least 6 months posttransplant. Exclusions were being medically unstable or on dialysis, having serious preexisting mental health issues, or having previously practiced MBSR."

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

You need to acquire a comprehensive book on research, which has a wealth of information to help you learn about and critique the studies. If your program has not suggested any, try your school bookstore, school librarian or Amazon.

The sample design is usually discussed in the methodology section of the article.

Go to google scholar and pull up the FULL article, so you can review it .. if you can't find it there go to your school library online and look for the article.

woops

From what you described, you were very specific on the criteria of choosing your sample, so it definitely wasn't random. You can put your samples in clusters according to 1)age / age range; 2)type of organ transplant done; 3)gender; 4) facility where the transplant was done, etc. There are so many ways you can classify your sample. I think it would be best for you to decide how you want to proceed and how you would organize your samples, then work from there.

I can give it my best go!

I am having trouble identifying the sampling design used in this study.

"Transplant recipients living in a Midwestern metropolitan area were recruited through clinician referral, direct mailings from patient advocacy groups, and brochures placed in outpatient clinics and pharmacies.

***This is known as snowball sampling. It has pros because you are identifying potential candidates for the study, but the biggest con is that you may not be as diverse and or may not be representative of your population.

Inclusion criteria were a function- ing solid-organ transplant (ie, kidney, kidney/pancreas, pancreas, lung, liver, heart, or heart-lung), age 18 years or older, ability to read and write English, and willingness to attend classes.

*** I am assuming these were the participant variables (quasi IV's) that were being studied. IV1 = Functioning organ (with 7? levels), IV2 (age, though depending on how this is broken down it's hard to tell exactly what type this is without reading the article), IV3 (where the transplant was conducted has x amount of levels).

To avoid the confounding effects of surgical recovery, patients were at least 6 months posttransplant. Exclusions were being medically unstable or on dialysis, having serious preexisting mental health issues, or having previously practiced MBSR."

So, I am guessing the patients had the organ transplant assessed for functionality and that was likely given on a scale of some sort? Overall, without knowing all the details, my first guess would be a Between-Subjects Factorial ANOVA was conducted, because there were multiple IV's. Given the multiple levels of IV1 (the type of organ transplanted) A Bonferroni correction would probably be needed as well to help prevent the false positive results (type 1 error). Given the amount of IV's and levels, it could also be an ANCOVA or MANOVA. There are some nifty charts to explain this online!

Didn't read the study, but this would be my guess! I hope this helps a little based off of the stats I have done thus far.