InvestigativeTopic: Stigma screening using the SSCI-8 tool and health-related quality of life on newly diagnosed patients with a chronic illness.
Instructions:
In this assignment, students will refine their plan for data collection and analysis. It is important to note that students may not develop their own survey instrument. The survey instrument must be reliable and valid. This posting should be no more than 5-6 pages in length (excluding title and reference pages and survey instrucme) and be supported by 10-15 scholarly references. References may be from peer-reviewed journals within the past five years or textbooks (latest edition). Governmental websites such as the CDC, US Census Bureau, AHRQ may be used sparingly. Lay websites and publications may not be used.  Research Investigation assignment Essay Paper

Stigma Screening Using the SSCI-8 Tool and Health Related Quality of Life on Newly Diagnosed Patients with a Chronic Illness: Data Collection and Analysis Plan

It is a known fact that people living with chronic illnesses often face stigma from the wider society. The knowledge that one is stigmatized for their condition alone is enough to cause significant psychological suffering and even worsen the condition. One such chronic illness with significant stigma is epilepsy. It is therefore clinically important to screen for stigma among patients who have chronic illnesses. One of the tools developed for this purpose is the Stigma Scale for Chronic illnesses 8-Item version or SSCI-8 (Ballesteros et al., 2019; Ballesteros et al., 2018). This paper is based on the use of this tool and presents a refined plan for data collection and analysis.

Survey Instrument Table and Literature Review

A total of five studies related to the subject at hand have been reviewed and the results entered into the survey instrument table below. All the five studies confirm that indeed the Stigma Scale for Chronic illnesses 8-Item version or SSCI-8 instrument is effective for measuring the level of stigma suffered by patients who have chronic illnesses such as stroke and multiple sclerosis. A review of the literature shows that the instrument is reliable with a Cronbach alpha score of 0.88. Its results are therefore valid and can be relied upon to draw conclusions and inferences for the general population. In other words, the generalizability of the results produced by the SSCI-8 survey instrument is assured. The literature shows that when the SSCI-8 is used to gauge the level of stigma among chronically ill patients, the prevalence of the same is found to range between 62.7% and 80% (Ballesteros et al., 2018; Sarfo et al., 2017).

Each of these articles informs my project in that it is investigating the use of the SSCI-8 instrument or questionnaire in the determination of the amount of stigma faced by chronically ill patients. Used without exception, in Anagnostouli et al. (2016), Ballesteros et al. (2019), Ballesteros et al. (2018), Pérez-Miralles et al. 2019) and Sarfo et al. (2017).    Research Investigation assignment Essay Paper

Table 1: Survey instrument table

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Survey Instrument to be Used with this Project

The survey instrument that will be used with this project is the Stigma Scale for Chronic Illnesses 8-Item version (SSCI-8) instrument or questionnaire. It is the best fit to answer the question in this project which is the effect and impact of stigma on the psychological health of patients having chronic illnesses (Salih & Landers, 2019). The statistical analysis that will be conducted will entail drawing conclusions and inferences and therefore will have to be nonparametric. Specifically, these will be logistic regression and Spearman’s rank correlation. Indeed, I will need a statistician to assist me with the operations and interpretation of the nonparametric statistical measures. However, I do not have access to one currently.  Research Investigation assignment Essay Paper

The Population to be Recruited for the Project

The population to be recruited for this project will comprise of adults 18 years and older who are living with epilepsy. The reason for this choice is that epilepsy is a chronic illness that is associated with a lot of misinformation and myths. For this reason, persons suffering from it usually face a significant amount of stigma (Lopes de Souza et al., 2018). This project will aim to measure the degree of this stigma from this study population. Some of the characteristics that make the chosen population fit to answer the study question are that it suffers from a common chronic illness, it is heterogeneous and so all age groups are represented, and it includes everyone from every socioeconomic background. The inclusion criteria are age above 18 years, a diagnosis of epilepsy for a period not less than 1 month, experience of epilepsy symptoms within the past three months, and being n active treatment for epilepsy. The exclusion criteria include age below 18 years and lack epilepsy symptoms in the last three months. The number of participants or sample size that I will need to conduct the study and which will be verified through an SPSS power analysis is n = 150 (UCLA, n.d.).

The Recruitment Protocol and Qualitative Data to be Collected

The recruitment protocol will entail sending an email with a link to the online survey that has the SSCI-8 questionnaire. Recruitment of participants will occur through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (mTurk). This is an online crowdsourcing resource that was originally designed to recruit workers who are remotely located (Amazon, 2018). To effectively recruit more participants, the participants who have received the email will be encouraged to forward the survey link to other persons that they know have been recently diagnosed with epilepsy. There will be a consent form that has to be filled before taking part in the survey (OHRP, 2018). For the participants through mTurk who will disseminate the link there will be a one dollar compensation for each successfully completed survey. The qualitative data that will be collected will be stigma scale scores by using the SSCI-8 questionnaire instrument.

References

Amazon (2018). Amazon mechanical turk. https://www.mturk.com/

Anagnostouli, M., Katsavos, S., Artemiadis, A., Zacharis, M., Argyrou, P., Theotoka, I., Christidi, F., Zalonis, I., & Liappas, I. (2016). Determinants of stigma in a cohort of hellenic patients suffering from multiple sclerosis: A cross-sectional study. BMC Neurology, 16(101), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12883-016-0621-4

Ballesteros, J., Martínez-Ginés, M.L., García-Domínguez, J.M., Forero, L., Prefasi, D., & Maurino, J. (2019). Assessing stigma in multiple sclerosis: Psychometric properties of the eight-item stigma scale for chronic illness (SSCI-8). International Journal of MS Care, 21(5), 195-199. https://doi.org/10.7224/1537-2073.2018-053

Ballesteros, J., Martínez-Ginés, M.L., García-Domínguez, J.M., Forero, L., Prefasi, D., & Maurino, J. (2018). Stigma in Multiple Sclerosis: Revisiting the psychometric properties of the SSCI-8 questionnaire (P4.414). Neurology, 90(15 Supplement). https://n.neurology.org/content/90/15_Supplement/P4.414

Lopes de Souza, J., Faiola, A.S., Miziara , C.S.M.G., & Giraldes de Manreza, M.L. (2018). The perceived social stigma of people with epilepsy with regard to the question of employability. Neurology Research International, 1-5. https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/4140508

Office for Human Research Protections [OHRP] (January 15, 2018). The Belmont Report: Ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research. https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/belmont-report/read-the-belmont-report/index.html

Pérez-Miralles, F., Prefasi, D., Garcıa-Merino, A., Ara, J.R., Izquierdo, G., Meca-Lallana, V., Gascon, F., Martınez-Gines, M.L., Ramio-Torrenta, L., Costa-Frossard, L., Fernandez, O., Moreno-Garcıa, S., Maurino, J., & Casanova-Estruch, B. (2019). Perception of stigma in patients with primary progressive multiple sclerosis. Multiple Sclerosis Journal (MSJ) – Experimental, translational, Clinical, 5(2), 1-4. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/2055217319852717

Salih, M.H., & Landers, T. (2019). The concept analysis of stigma towards chronic illness patient. Hospice and Palliative Medicine International Journal, 3(4), 132-136. http://dx.doi.org/10.15406/hpmij.2019.03.00166

Sarfo, F.S., Nichols, M., Qanungo, S., Teklehaimanot, A., Singh, A., Mensah, N., … Ovbiagele, B. (2017). Stroke-related stigma among West Africans: Patterns and predictors. Journal of the Neurological Sciences, 375, 270–274. https://doi.org/doi:10.1016/j.jns.2017.02.018

UCLA (n.d.). Introduction to power analysis. https://stats.idre.ucla.edu/other/mult-pkg/seminars/intro-power/  Research Investigation assignment Essay Paper