Critiquing the Interventions on Baby Boot Camp Study

Critiquing the Interventions on Baby Boot Camp: Facilitating Maternal Role Adaptation among Military Wives

Introduction

The study tests the nursing intervention effects on the postpartum and prenatal adoption of maternal role among military wives. The experimental intervention employed was a random selection of prime gravid military wives who were categorized into two. One group was assigned to a Baby Boot Camp (n=44) while the other to a traditional childbirth education (n=47). The Baby Boot Camp was a program, lasting for four weeks, and preparing the women for parenting and was based on a resilience paradigm. The Baby Boot Camp strategies included the development of internal resources and non-traditional external resources that facilitated the adaptation of maternal roles. The experiment, the intervention used Personal Resource Questionnaire, Prenatal Self-Evaluation Questionnaire, and Resilience Scale at baseline (gestation 32-37 weeks), after the intervention, and six weeks after delivery. 

The conceptual model employed by the researchers was described in details. The BBC framework used was based on the resilience model that asserts that the adoption of a person to a stressor is influenced by vulnerability and protective factors within the individual and their environment. The model describes both protective and vulnerability factors in details. After identifying the factors, the study aligns them with the research question. According to their argument, because military wives have limited access to traditional external resources, they tend to seek for social support from non-traditional sources regularly. Therefore, the study explains its experimental intervention in detail.

While comparing the literature review on the subject and the experimental intervention, there is limited justification in the literature to allow the development of the experimental intervention. The literature review in the article is shallow as it fails to identify the scope of the problem. The only fact that is mentioned that is about the research question was the extent of depression in a survey on military wives conducted in the US. The researchers should have incorporated more information from several other studies. It would give a comparative approach that would indicate the general scope of the research problem. 

Given the current knowledge, the researchers should have set a more recent model to address their research problem. According to Powell-Morse (2017), a conceptual model represents abstracts concepts and ways to which they relate. The model contains a lot of benefits as it defines the scope of a project, establishes entities, forms a baseline for other models and has a high-level of understanding. However, it depends on the ability of researchers to formulate a reliable model. This may lead to constraints like possible system lashes, potential time sink, and difficult to develop and maintain a proper model. 

The outstanding criterion used in the study was the well-developed protocol. The researchers used a protocol that ensured consistent and reliable implementation that would assist students to relate the intervention and the treatment used. The setting of the research was in a chronological way that is easy to understand for the student. The summary of the study was the first section that indicated almost every part of the survey. Following the selections assist the reader to intertwine the intervention and the treatment used in the survey. 

However, the report failed to indicate the persons responsible for implementation of the therapy. There was no mention of the number of individuals employed in the application of the treatment. All that the research indicated was that the wives that were in BBC program were engaged in small group discussions. Discussion panel members facilitated these debates that were newly delivered military wives. Although this group had the first-hand experience of giving birth, they were not professionally trained for the intervention.

The research method used in the study was a randomized clinical trial, where the participants were randomly assigned to either the BBC which was experimental or traditional CBE which was the control group (Schachman, Lee, & Lederma, 2004). According to Jadad et al. (1996), a randomized controlled trial is a study design that assigns subjects a control or experimental group. The study mentioned about the control group. However, it failed to explain in details ways in which the group differed from the control group. 

In discussing the outcome of the research, the study neglected to provide an intervention theory. No theory explained the cause of the interventions outcome. The researchers describe ways in which internal and external factors influenced the postpartum outcome of military officials’ wives both in experimental and the control group. However, the results have not been compared to any intervention theory. Therefore, the study did not relate the relationship between intervention theory and the intervention results in the conceptual model. Thus the results of the study do not portray any direct association of its results with any intervention theory. 

Conclusion

The research design used, randomized clinical trial in a conceptual model was described in detail. The researchers used a chronological and easy to understand the theoretical model. To achieve its results, the study used two groups BBC which was the experimental group and the control group. However, there some few factors that were missing in the study like illustrating the relationship between the outcomes and an intervention theory. Nevertheless, this study is important and can be used as a baseline for other studies.

References

Jadad, A., Moore, R., Carroll, D., Jenkinson, C., Reynolds, D., Gavaghan, D., & McQuay, H. (1996). Assessing the quality of reports of randomized clinical trials: Is blinding necessary?. Controlled Clinical Trials, 17(1), 1-12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0197-2456(95)00134-4

Powell-Morse, A. (2017). Conceptual Models – What Are They and How Can You Use them?. Airbrake Blog. Retrieved from https://airbrake.io/blog/sdlc/conceptual-model

Schachman, Lee, & Lederma. (2004). Baby boot camp: facilitating maternal role adaptation among military wives. Nursing Research, 53(2), 107-115.