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Student Worksheet: Analyzing a Journal Article

Please read the assigned journal article and answer the following questions. Review the “Paraphrasing”
module as needed to help you understand how to paraphrase to avoid plagiarism.

Your name: _____________________________________________

Saraí Jiménez Rivera Date: __________________________
23.08.2022

Journal article title: ___________________________________________________________

Clinical study evaluating the efficacy of ivermectin in COVID19 treatment:
A randomized controlled study
____________________________________________________________________________

Step 1. What is the purpose/hypothesis/aim/objective of the study?

a. Write down the exact statement in which the

authors describe what they were testing. (Hint:
This information may be provided in the article as
a purpose statement or as a hypothesis). Include
quotation marks around the exact wording, and
indicate page number(s).
"Evaluate the efficacy of ivermectin for the
treatment of hospitalized mild to mod-erate
COVID19 infected patients"
Page 1/6

b. Now describe the purpose of the study (as you

understand it) in your own words.
Due to the beneficial mechanism of ivermectin
that has been observed in other studies and
because of its accessibility, the study seeks to
evaluate its efficacy and safety in the treatment
of COVID-19.

c. What was the “gap” in the research that the

authors were trying to fill by doing their study? Due to its viral mechanism, it is suggested that it
could be beneficial in the treatment against
COVID-19, so this study evaluates its supposed
efficacy and also if it is safe to use.

Copyright University of Guelph 2013


Step 2. What is/are the major finding(s) of the study?
a. Make some notes about the authors’ major
conclusions or findings as written in the article.
Include quotation marks whenever you use their
exact wording, and indicate page number(s).
b. Now write those conclusions (as you
understand them) in your own words.
Step 3. How did the authors test their hypothesis?
a. Briefly summarize the main steps or
measurements that the authors used in their
methods. Try to explain in your own words as
much as possible.
b. Do the authors suggest any problems or
limitations with their methodology? Do you see
any problems or limitations with their
methodology?
c. How did the authors analyse their data? What
test/s did they use?
Copyright University of Guelph 2013
Page |2
1. "There had been atrend to reducing the length
of hospitalization was observed in theivermectin"
Page 4.
2. "The usage of ivermectin did not achieve
sig-nificance for any of the endpoints" (Page 5),
criteria include laboratory parameters and
radiological findings, need for mechanical
ventilation, and mortality from COVID-19.
In general, there was no significant difference in
the results of the group treated with ivermectin and
the control group, except in the length of hospital
stay, which was slightly reduced.
This was a 1:1 parallel-group, open-label,
randomized clinical trial of ivermectin versus standard
care for the treatment of hospitalized patients with
COVID19.
All adult patients aged 20 to 65 years with mild to
moderately affected COVID-19 infection confirmed by
PCR were included in the study.
The group of 164 patients was randomized and
divided into two groups. Later, cabinet and laboratory
studies were carried out to evaluate the results.
The small sample size and the lack of a placebo
group.
Intentiontotreat including all randomly assigned
individual, Shapiro–Wilks test. Data were analyzed
by Statistical Package for Social Sciences(SPSS).
Student'sttest and Mann–Whitney's and finally,
binary logisticregression.
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Step 4. How reliable are the results?

a. Do the authors suggest any problems with the
study that could lead to unreliable results?
The limitations of the research results may depend
mainly on the health conditions of the patients, the
need for admission to the intensive care unit and the
consequences of mortality, and not on the viremic
response, as well as the small dose of administered
ivermectin.

Step 5. Based on your analysis, are the claims

made in this journal article accurate?
a. Do the conclusions made (about the results) by
I consider that the conclusions are broad since
the author make sense to you? Are the the analysis with respect to other studies is
conclusions too broad or too narrow based on included, due to the lack of significant results of
the same study.
what was actually done in the study?

b. Based on the accuracy of the methodology and

the reliability of the results as described in Steps 3 I do consider that although the limitations of the
study may affect the results, its statistical
and 4, do you think the conclusions can be methodology gives us reliable results.
believed?

Copyright University of Guelph 2013

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Step 6. What is the importance of this scientific work?

a. Write (in your own words) the significant
contributions of the experimental work in this
journal article as reported by the authors.
I believe that it helped us to verify the results of
other studies, such as the decrease in
hospitalization time, however, no new or
significant results were shown for the rest of the
variables evaluated.

b. Re-read your notes and explain why you think

this is
o a strong or weak scientific article
o a strong or weak scientific study
I consider that due to the statistical analysis it is a
good article, well founded and analyzed, however
as a study it had many limitations, if the dose had
been better evaluated, for example, perhaps more
significant results would have been found.

Resources for students:

1. If you are struggling with plagiarism and paraphrasing, then refer to our online “Paraphrasing” module.
2. If you are struggling with figuring out how to read the information, then refer to the section on active
reading in the “Learning from Textbooks” section of A Guide for University Learning.
3. If you want to learn how to find more academic information on other science topics, then refer to our
online “Searching for Scientific Journal Articles” module.

Copyright University of Guelph 2013