Course Title: Research Methods

Course Instructor: Dr. Sara Shahed

Submitted By: Khizra Naveed (243-940314)

Date: May 8, 2023

 1. Summary of article (Title, origin, purpose, method, and findings; (Around 300-500

words). [4 marks]

Title:

To begin with the title of the research article is “Relationship between Ego Integrity,

Despair, Social Support and Health Related Quality of Life”.

Origin:

The concept of ego integrity and despair came from the theory of Erikson. Erikson (1963)

proposed that when humans go from one psychological stage to the next, they tend to balance the

inner and outside worlds. External and internal social strain. Within each stage, the individual is

challenged with negative opposing forces, such as despair, which is antagonistic to ego integrity.

Ego integrity versus despair is the last stage of personality development that involves accepting

one’s life as it is (Erickson, 1963). The older adults who are successful at this feel content with

their life and experience a feeling of completeness and those who are not fall into despair.

Purpose:

The purpose of this study was to explore the inter-relationship between despair, ego

integrity, social support, and health-related quality of life in older adults. Moreover, it aimed to

identify ego integrity and social support as predictors of health-related quality of life.

Methodology:

A correlational study was conducted on a purposive sample of 100 older adults from

Lahore. The sample consisted of 50 men and 50 women. Each group completed a series of
questionnaires including Ryffs’s Ego Integrity Scale (EIS), Medical Outcome Studies Social

Support Survey (MOS SSS), and Short Form 36 (sf36) Health Survey. Informed consent was

taken, permission to conduct research was taken as well. Respondents filled a demographic sheet

and the information was collected about the participants, such as name, age, marital status, and

socioeconomic status etc.

Findings:

Correlation study revealed that as ego integrity grows, so does social support and the mental

and physical health of older persons. The present study's findings also suggested that older

persons with high levels of social support had high levels of ego integrity and are mentally

healthy, despite having poor physical health. Furthermore, the analysis of variance revealed that

economic stability is vital in sustaining ego integrity and mental and physical health, but social

support is more important in maintaining mental health. Multiple regression study revealed that

ego integrity and social support are significant determinants of mental health, whereas age,

exercise, presence of chronic disease, and employment status are important predictors of physical

health. Thus, correlational research revealed no significant association between ego integrity and

physical health or social support. Finally, there is no relationship between mental and physical

health.

2. What new thing did you learn from this article? (Around 300-500 words).

[2 marks]

There were many new things and concepts that I cam across with in this research

article that are given below:

 I learnt the concept of health-related quality of life includes factors like physical,

psychological, and social aspects of wellbeing and which the individual perceives

as ideal health.

 Further, I learnt about the concepts of ego integrity and despair by Erikson as the

last stage of personality development and accepting one-self by reviewing the life.

And how despair is related to hatred and repentance and if an older person is

unable to accept his life, it may lead to the predominance of despair.

 Moreover, the tools that were used for assessment were new to me, and the

dimensions they were measuring intrigued me. For example, Form 36 Health

Survey (SF-36) had 8 subscales measuring physical and mental health. In which,

Physical functioning includes, Role physical, Bodily pain, General health etc. and

Mental health is tested using 5 items and Health transition domain as well.

 Statistical analysis done in the research article made my previous concepts clearer

like how we can use correlation to find out strength and relationship among the

variables, and how regression analysis can be done to find out predictors of our

dependent variable.

 Moreover, I learnt that we could see physical and mental health components of

quality of life separately to get the better understanding of phenomenon.

 Besides, results were quite intriguing that how social support is a significant

predictor of mental health in older adults but not of physical health, and employed

older people have high level of physical functioning, unemployed having lower

means on ego integrity, and retired having high levels of mental health than

unemployed group.
  Another important and intriguing finding that was new to me was apart from ego

integrity and social support demographic variables of age, exercise habits and

employment status were the factors that significantly predict physical health.

 Moreover, it was reported in the sample that there is no correlation between

physical and mental health component of the targeted population which is another

thing I learnt from this research article.

 Last, I learnt from the given article that physical and mental health of older adults

is accounted for by the degree of social support, age, presence of any chronic

illness and employment status.

3. Do you agree with the sampling strategy? Explain your response? (Around 100

words). [1 mark]

Yes, I agree with the sampling strategy that is used in the research article. As the

purposive sampling is the type of non-probability sampling in which you choose

participants according to the defined criteria of population of interest and in this research,

the researchers have defined their inclusion and exclusion criteria, random sampling

could have not been useful in this case. So, the purposive sampling where you can choose

the desirable sample based on your expertise and judgements is highly recommended in

such situations. Although, with the defined criteria you get much smaller sample that

cannot be generalized for the whole population and isn’t representative of broader groups,

but it does help explaining, making conclusions and fulfill the purpose of the research

with the targeted population.

4. What are the shortcomings of this research? (Around 200 words).

[2 marks]
 There are few shortcomings in this research that are as follows:

 First, one demographic variable marital status which is mentioned in the purpose

section of the article as well as in methodology section that the researchers were

intended to explore wasn’t mentioned further in the results or analysis section.

The researchers did not mention why they excluded this variable which

apparently is an important one. If the results were non-significant or not nothing is

mentioned regarding it further.

 Moreover, the data was not large in number, the larger data can be taken to make

results more authentic and reliable.

 The data was collected just from one city of the country where the people belong

to diverse background and culture so the findings cannot be generalized and used

for any professional decision making and interventions.

 The data was collected from the older people of one urban city, so the research

article does not explain the phenomenon for older people living in rural areas.

 The age of older adults mentioned according to different sources in the

introduction part is 60 onwards and the data was collected making age range 65

onwards which in turn making the mean age of 70 in this researcher. An

appropriate broader age range could have been taken.

 Equal number of men and women were taken so it was better to find out mean

differences of men and women on dependent variables.

5. What are the plus points of this research? (Around 200 words).

[2 marks]

There are many plus points in this research which are as follows:
 First, the article was brief but comprehensive, and easy to understand.

 The scales used in this research to measure ego integrity, social support, and

health related quality of life were the Urdu versions as the population was older

people so it was easy for them to comprehend and understand the questions.

 Another plus point about scales was that they were measuring different

dimensions of the variable, making the research more authentic and valid. For

example, the social support scale was measuring 5 important dimensions of it.

Moreover, short form health survey was measuring both physical and mental

health.

 The researchers conducted statistical analysis and provided results for both

physical and mental health components of life which are considered in very few

researches.

 As per the information given in article, ego integrity as a whole component was

measured which has been done in very few research even in western culture,

instead of its components like life satisfaction etc.

 Different interesting demographic variables of older adults like chronic illness,

employment status, and exercise were considered and interesting results came up.

 This research article did not only tell us about interrelationships between the

variables, but also conducted regression analysis and gave detailed information

about the predictors telling cause and effect relationship among variables.

Moreover, mean differences were also found out of different employment status

on dependent variables. So, it was comprehensive research.

6. How would you redesign this study if you had to use a mixed methods approach?

(Around 300 words). [4 marks]

If I had to use a mixed method approach both quantitative and qualitative research

methods would have been incorporated in the research to draw conclusions for the target

population. The study could be redesigned using the following approach:

So, the first part can be quantitative part:

1. Quantitative Part of the research:

The quantitative stage will go as it has been explained in the given research article

which involve the administration of questionnaires and psychological tools such as

Ego integrity scale, Medical Outcome Study Social Support Survey (MOS SSS), and

Short Form 36 Health Survey (SF-36) to get quantitative data for statistical analysis.

Data will be collected through purposive sampling and the minimum requirement will

be 200, with 100 men and 100 women. Furthermore, data can be analyzed and

interpreted by using statistical methods such as correlation, analysis of variance and

regression analysis. T-test can also be conducted to find out mean differences between

genders, and other groups with two subcategories.

2. Qualitative Part of the research:

This stage entails gathering qualitative data to augment the quantitative findings.

Interviews, focus group talks, or open-ended questionnaire questions might all be

used to acquire qualitative data. Purposive sampling would be preferred in qualitative

part of the research as well to get the data from the desired population. The qualitative

data might be utilized to get in-depth insights into the participants' experiences,
 feelings, and attitudes towards the notions of ego integrity, despair, social support,

and quality of life. Thematic analysis is the most appropriate method to be used in

this type of qualitative research so it can be used by researchers to analyze qualitative

data to uncover themes that emerge from the transcripts and recordings of the

interviews and focus groups.

3. Incorporating the Two Stages:

The last stage is combining quantitative and qualitative data. To understand the

link between ego integrity, despair, social support, and quality of life, quantitative and

qualitative data can be compared. The study findings will be significantly stronger

and more conclusive if the two stages are combined. So, using a mixed methodology

offers a balance of both quantitative and qualitative research methods to investigate

such complex phenomena.