Women With Diabetes, Research Paper Example

My dissertation topic is related to women with diabetes who take birth control pills. It focuses on the effects birth control has in women living with type 1 diabetes. Indeed, although birth control pills are generally safe for women to take, their use is limited to women younger than 35 years who do not smoke and show no evidence of hypertension, nephropathy, retinopathy, or other vascular disease. Restricted use of contraception pills for women with diabetes may be warranted. Indeed, the use of oral contraceptives can invite macroalbuminuria in women with diabetes, which can lead to diabetic nephropathy and retinopathy (Ahmed, 2005).

One potential qualitative method could be interviews with African-American women who took (or are taking) birth control and have diabetes. The qualitative interview method would focus on asking the women the relationship between diabetes and birth control, the onset of symptoms, and how those symptoms and/or contracted diseases have affected their life. The data would be collected through either direct interviews with the women, or through surveys that could be filled out on line or acquired via mail. Although qualitative studies provide important insight into how individuals respond to diabetes, it may have limited generalizability to other populations. That is, there are numerous threats to validity.

One potential quantitative method would be to look at how birth-control use among African-American women with diabetes leads to different results. Logistic regression, among other regression techniques, could be used to isolate the impact of taking birth control among African-American women; or, the regression could isolate those women with diabetes with those women who did not have diabetes. Although there are still are various threats to validity with quantitative methods, they are arguably fewer than those associated with qualitative methods. The main threat to validity, at least for this topic, would be selection bias- the inclusion of individuals in the sample population that are not necessarily representative of the general population.

Overall, the quantitative method is likely the most appropriate for the dissertation, although that depends on the research question ultimately being explored.

References:

Ahmed, N. (2005). AdvancedGlycationEndproducts-Role in Pathology of Diabetic Complications. Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice, 67(1), 3-21. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168822704002943

Hughes, C. Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Available at: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/sociology/staff/academicstaff/chughes/hughesc_index/teachingresearchprocess/quantitativequalitative/quantitativequalitative/