Article Reviews about Bronchial Asthma - Literature review Example

ARTICLE REVIEWS al Affiliation) Bronchial asthma is a major challenge that has caused health problems to the current and past generations. This has compelled medical health researchers and other scientists to focus on ways that can be applied to facilitate the formulation of appropriate solutions to the affected challenges. This research shall focus on a review of five articles that delves into issues ascribed to asthma as a major health challenge in various parts of the world. Specifically, it shall focus on summary of each individual article, evaluating its strengths as well as the associated weaknesses. Moreover, it shall focus on the design, authors’ details and the specific dates of publication. In addition, the findings of each article shall be summarized and the evaluation presented in this discussion. There shall be a conclusive paragraph that will delve on my personal views and understanding of the information presented in the five articles as well generalized information with regard to health issues ascribed to asthma. The final page shall consist of the reference page, which will involve the secondary sources of information that guided the presentation of this report. Summary of the Articles In 2013, a research was published by the Egyptian Society of Chest Tuberculosis Disease in the Egyptian Chest and Tuberculosis Journal. The authors of the research article are Abdelnabi E.A, Ali A.E and Kamel M.M. the aim of the research was focused towards assessing the efficacy of nebulized magnesium sulphate in treating asthma as a form of bronchodilator and comparing it to the nebulized salbutamol. In regard to the research design indicated in the article, the specific mode of study that was applied was a randomized mode of study that was undertaken El-Gaza Chest Hospital Emergency Department between the periods of January in the year 2010 and the month of June 2011.In order to achieve the results of the randomize technique in the study design, the study focused on application of the enclosed envelope technique. In addition, the study sample of this research focused on 48 patients, who were experiencing acute or sub-acute asthma health challenges. Specifically, the article indicates that the study design involved division of patients into groups of Control Group A and a Study Group B. The article also indicates that the study design of research involved the assessment of the selected 48 patients in relation to the history of health challenges, specifically; functionality of their accessory muscles, their respective heart rates, medical history, respiratory rate and other aspects of clinical examination. It is also pointed out that the patients in the research study published in this article were subjected to assessments with regard to assessment of their peak expiratory flow rate as well as the level of oxygen saturation. They were also provided with treatment in regard to their acute respiratory diseases, through administration of 100gm sodium hydrocortisone hemisuccinate at a time interval of six hours every day. Moreover, they were provided with supplemental oxygen as well as 0.5% of nebulized solutions, specifically for the study group A while the study group B was subjected to administration of magnesium sulphate through a 10% nebulized solution after every 20 minutes. They were reassessed after every two hours to determine if there was any form of improvement. The article goes further and indicates the results of this study, which are: A significant change in the percentage amount of peak expiratory flow rate was evident in both study groups; however, the peak expiratory flow rate was relatively higher in the study group A at a level of 58.9% as compared to the study group B, which was at 13.92%. Moreover, the results of the study indicate that there was a reduction in the level of Heart Rates in group B as compared to Group A at a level of 85bpm and 96.1bpm respectively. On the other hand, the respiratory rate in group A reduced significantly as compared to the respiratory rate in group B. Strengths and Weaknesses of the Article The strength of this article lays on the fact that it a research article that can be used to improve health service provision, specifically for patients suffering from health acute asthma health challenges. Moreover, the authors begin by providing an abstract that describes the aim of the research thus creating the essence of attracting specific readers. There is also a conclusive section that that describes the conclusion of this research with in relation to the results of the study. This information can be applied in the health sector to facilitate the efforts directed towards providing health services to patients of acute asthma disease. However, this article does not pin-point the specific roles of each individual author and the specific roles that were played by the people who did the experiment, thus creating its major weakness. The other article focuses on a study that was undertaken by: Judith Cohen, Steven Goodcare, Jonathan Benger, Timothy Coats, Aladair Gray, Mike Bradburn et al. It was published on the 17th of May, 2013. The aim of the article is to investigate whether or not intravenous or nebulized magnesium sulphate can improve the health conditions of patients affected by acute asthma conditions, with specific focus directed towards the determination of whether this treatment method may improve the breathing conditions in such patients thereby reducing the need to admit such patients in hospitals. The article indicates that the study design that was employed in the research entailed the use of double blind, placebo-controlled trial process. Patients aged 16 years or less suffering from acute asthma challenges were selected from different 34 heath departments in various parts of the United Kingdom. Patients that indicated life threatening challenges in regard to the problems caused by asthma were excluded for drug tests. Moreover, the research indicated that central randomization process was applied to allocate the selected participants nebulized magnesium sulphate through intravenous procedures at an amount of 2 grams within a period of 20 minutes. Another procedure that was applied as indicated in the article entailed the use administration of 500mg of magnesium sulphate coupled with standard therapy of sabutamol or even placebo control or even in some cases, the application of standard therapy alone. An assessment was undertaken in regard to the primary treatment method that was administered in each study group within the 7 days of their attendance to the hospital. The level of challenges associated with breathing among the patients was assessed at an interval of two hours and the appropriate adjustments were made. The results of the findings indicate that the rate of hospital admission did not differ between the patients that were subjected to treatment processes involving the use of nebulized magnesium sulphate and intravenous magnesium sulphate. Moreover, the results indicate that the change in VAS did not differ between the periods of active treatment and during the process of control treatment. However, there was a significant greater level of VAS change among the patients that were treated using the nebulized magnesium sulphate as compared to the patients that were treated using the process of intravenous magnesium sulphate. The study also indicated that intravenous or even nebulized magnesium sulphate did not lead to a reduction of the number of patients that are usually admitted for acute asthma challenges. Consequently, the article also points out the interpretation of the results of this research by indicating that, nebulized magnesium sulphate does not have a significant effect in the process of managing the health of patients suffering from acute asthma conditions while the intravenous magnesium sulphate has a limited effect and does not play any pertinent role. Strengths and Weaknesses of the article The article presents pertinent information that can be used to facilitate the process of providing health services to patients suffering from acute asthma conditions. Moreover, it indicates the specific procedure that was applied to undertake this study and does not indicate any form of biasness that may be associated with data collection and interpretation of the results. The methodology applied in the applied in the process of data collection depicts a great of validity owing to the fact that it indicates the specific age group that was used as the participants for this research. However, the main weakness that may arise from this research is that it only focuses on a specific age group thus; one may consider that the results are only valid for the specific age group. In addition, the article does not highlight the specific number of patients or participants that were used in the study; this may create challenges among people that are in need of the specific research details that were applied in the study. On the third of January, 2013, an article was published by the Journal of Respiratory Medicine. The authors of this article are; Liegang Liu, Di Wang, Wei Yang, Jungan Xie, Ping Yao, Zhlei Shang and Ying Rong. It focuses on a research that was undertaken with an objective of facilitating a systematic review as well as meta-analysis of to determine the level of effects of nebulized and intravenous magnesium sulphate to treat children and adult patient suffering from acute asthma disease. The article also describes the specific research design that was employed to facilitate the research process. It indicates that the concerned stakeholders of this research applied the concept of utilizing electronic sources of information as well as undertaking key manual search on respiratory journals that were published from October, 2011. Moreover, the article also points out that the researcher went further to perform randomized trial tests that was directed towards patients that were treated with intravenous magnesium sulphate and those that were treated with nebulized magnesium sulphate coupled with the use of β2 agonists. This was compared with treatment of patients that were treated with the use of β2 agonists alone. The results of this article were achieved by calculating the standard mean deviation of the data collected as well as the calculation of the relative risks for pulmonary functions and the level of hospital attendance. The article goes further and published the results of the study; to begin with, it indicates that 25 trials were conducted, by specifically performing 16 trials of intravenous treatment and 9 trials for nebbulized magnesium sulphate treatment. The number of participants that were used in this research was 1754 composed of adults and children. According to the results of the research published in the article, the application of intravenous treatment of asthma among patients suffering from asthma was associated with significant effects on the respiratory functions among adults. However, there was evidence of weak effectiveness among the patients that were admitted in hospitals, among adults and children. The results also indicate that the application of nebulized treatment for asthma among patients is associated with significant effects in regard to the pulmonary functions of the concerned patients. The conclusive section of the article indicates that the application of the intravenous magnesium sulphate among asthmatic patients together with the use of β2 agonists as well as systematic functions were associated with positive effects i.e. improving the pulmonary functions among children and reduction of the number of children admitted in hospitals for asthma problems. However, among adults, the application of intravenous magnesium sulphate to treat adult asthmatic patients only assisted in the improvement of their pulmonary functions. Strengths and Weaknesses of the Article The article can be considered reliable source of information owing to the fact that it provides vivid description of the methods that are used to collect and analyze the data. Moreover, it is an imperative resource of health information that can be used to facilitate processes directed towards improving health service provision. Despite the fact that it is associated with these strengths, it is associated with certain limitations that arise from the mode of information collection, hence raising concerns regarding the reliability of the data collected: Specifically, the author of the article asserts that the researchers of this study used secondary data to gather information ascribed to asthma treatment. Some sources of secondary information are usually unreliable as they are usually subjected to information manipulation from second parties. In addition, the results of the research seem to have been based on hypothesis, evidenced by the fact that the author uses the word, “appear to produce”; this indicates that there is room for contradictory results and that the author is not quite sure about the results of the experiment. A randomized clinical test was performed to determine the effects of magnesium sulphate as vehicle for application in nebulized salbutamol in the means of treating severe and moderate asthmatic problems among patients. This is information was published in the Journal of Pharmacology & Therapeutics dated 2005. The article was written by Karamercan A, P. Kara, N Kokturk, Turktas H, Yilmaz. F and Mullaoglu S. The research design that was used in this study as indicated in the article depicts that; a total of 26 patients suffering from asthma was engaged in the study through a process of randomized single blind dimension. This randomization process was followed by obtaining the measurements of the peak flow expiratory measurements from each of the participants followed by other clinical evaluation processes. The article goes further and indicates that the study entailed a procedure whereby all the patients were subjected to administration of oxygen and 1mg of corticosteroids and a process that involved the use of jet nebulizer to administer 2.5ml of magnesium sulphate, 2.5 ml of salbutamol or 2.5ml of saline in two different groups (Group1η=14 and Group 2η= 12). According to this article, the process of nebulization was repeated every 20 minutes for the first one hour and four times for the rest of four hours. The researchers then went ahead and took the peak expiratory flow measurements as well as the clinical assessments at different times of: 20th hours, 60th hour, 180th hour and the 240th hour. The patients (participants of the study) were discharged after their peak expiratory flow measurements reached a measurement of 70%. The results of the study as indicated in the article shows that the baseline peak expiratory flow measurements and other clinical measurements of the patients were similar among the participants that were involved in the study from different groups. The mean percentage increase in the peak expiratory flow measurement was similar between the groups. However, an evaluation of the peak expiratory flow measurement indicated a relative percentage increase. The conclusion section of the research goes indicates a suggestion that was made by the research with regard to the use of nebulized magnesium sulphate; specifically, the suggestion indicates that this mode of asthma treatment does not have any significant effect among patients. Strengths and Weaknesses of the Article Just like the other articles, this is an important source of health information that can be used as a secondary resource for health studies. It addition, the article gives readers a clear understanding of the methodologies that can be used to undertake such studies. The author also goes further in an attempt to describe the reliability of the information by indicating the specific methods that were used to perform the research as well as other sources of information that were used as references. However, the main weakness of the article is based on the fact that it is secondary sources of information that might have been subjected to certain editions and manipulation of information hence raising concerns in relation to the reliability of the information provided. Consequently, am article was published by the Multi-Center Air Research Collaboration Investigators in 2006. The specific authors of this article were: Brian. H, Rowe and Carlos Carmago. The article delves on research that was aimed at investigating the effects of administering magnesium sulphate to treat acute asthma in Northern American Health Departments. The research design that was used to collect, analyze and interprete results in this research involved an application of systematic reviews of randomized trials focuses on treatment processes through intravenous administration of magnesium sulphate. Data related to magnesium sulphate was obtained from observational reports from a cohort in the Emergency Department, specifically from the patients that were selected as participants for the research. In addition, the article indicates that internet-based survey was conducted to extract information regarding magnesium sulphate from the institution’s health service providers. The results of this study indicated that; from the 9745 patients that were studied, 240 received treatment by administration of intravenous magnesium sulphate; the Emergency Department experts asserted that the use magnesium sulphate as a mode of treating acute asthma had a significant positive effect among the patients. Summary and Conclusion The five research articles reviewed in this research focuses on various studies that have been undertaken to investigate treatment methods associated with asthmatic conditions. It appears that the research topic of the articles are also related as all of them were associated with the study of the efficacy of applying magnesium sulphate in treating acute asthma among adult and children patients. However, the most evident issue about these articles is that the results of the research studies that were performed are different, some of the researchers asserted that indeed the use of magnesium sulphate in treating asthma was an effective mode of treatment among asthmatic patients; on the other hand, some of the researches indicated in the articles indicated results showing that intravenous application of magnesium sulphate in treating acute asthma had no significant effect. This may raise concerns among various stakeholders regarding the credibility of these articles as sources of health information; moreover, concerns are raised in regard to the accuracy of the methods that were used to collect data from different parents. Bibliography Abdelnabi, E., Kamel, M., & Ali, A. (2012). Nebulized magnesium sulphate versus nebulized salbutamol in acute bronchial asthma. Egyptian Journal of CHest Diseases and Tuberculosis, 61(3), 29-34. Carmago, C., & Rowe, B. (2006). The use of magnesium sulfate in acute asthma: Rapid uptake of evidence in North American emergency departments. Multicenter Airway Research Collaboration (MARC) Investigators, 117(58), 8-30. Kokturk, N., Turktas, H., Kara, P., Mullaoglu, S., Yilmaz, F., & Karamercan, A. (2005). A randomized clinical trial of magnesium sulphate as a vehicle for nebulized salbutamol in the treatment of moderate to severe asthma attacks. Pulmonary Pharmacology & Therapeutics, 18(6), 416-421. Mangat, H., Dsouza, G., & Jacob, M. (1998). Nebulized magnesium sulphate versus nebulized salbutamol in acute bronchial asthma: a clinical trial. European Respiratory Journal, 12(2), 341-344. Shan, Z., Rong, Y., Yang, W., Wang, D., Yao, P., Xie, J., et al. (2013). Intravenous and nebulized magnesium sulfate for treating acute asthma in adults and children: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Respiratory Medicine, 107(3), 321-330. www.thelancet.com/respiratory Vol 1 June 2013 293 Articles. (n.d.). www.thelancet.com/respiratory Vol 1 June 2013 293 Articles. Retrieved March 28, 2014, from http://www.thelancet.com/respiratory Vol 1 June 2013 293 ArticlesFind a website by URL or keyword... Read More