Scenario Three Mental Health

Scenario Three Mental Health

Angela Miller

Southern New Hampshire University 

Scenario Three Mental Health

I have chosen Scenario 3 (Mental Health) as it is my concentration of study. I chose this scenario because I have studied CBT and REBT in community college and found I enjoyed studying it, and believe it is one of the best therapies to use on the clients I currently work with.

Forty adolescents were studied in two forty-five minute sessions for six weeks. All participants had a history of self-destructive behavior and were an inpatient status. They were divided into two groups of twenty. The data provided shows how many behaviors were displayed by the individuals with each type of therapy.

First, everyone involved in the study was informed they were being part of a study, second, they all signed release forms, third they were told they would be given the results of the study. However, the information provided leaves out the fact that adolescents can-not sign consent for themselves. A parent or guardian or court appointed guardian must sign for a child under the age of eighteen.

You need to ensure that the individuals understand what is done with all material from their study i.e.: video, photos, audio, etc. Is it kept, is it destroyed, is it kept for future study? All this must be explained in language understood by the individual to gain consent. There is also the ethics that come into play if you are told of abuse and neglect especially in the case of a minor child, as you must report such incidents. Even though it infringes on the privacy of the individual. There must also be permissions gained to share the data with others if such intent is there, and the individual needs to understand what information will be shared, will it just be statistical results, or their name, age, etc. Also, if the individual speaks about suicide or intent to harm or murder someone. I would ensure that each individual in my study group understood fully everything the study involved, what, with whom and how their information would be shared before consent.

My sample size is a total of n=40, which has been divided into two groups of 20. If the sample were larger the data would be more precise, which leave this sample size of 40 on the smaller size. Consequences of a smaller sample size can be wider confidence levels and risks of errors. Because the size is smaller when reporting it the data could be skewed and rendered null because it isn’t an accurate representation of the population.

For my research question which is whether CBT or REBT therapy worked best with the adolescents, I believe a two-sample t-test would be the correct approach. This procedure works when there are two groups used, and my sample of n=40 is divided into two separate groups, and will help determine if the two therapies are different enough and if the results recorded lead to an average difference.

Mean for group A is 42.9 with a standard deviation of 17.76425

Mean for group B is 51.65 with a standard deviation of 18.2822

The total Mean of both groups is 47.275 with a standard deviation of 18.10523

I conducted my two-sample t-test with the alpha of 0.05, input the data in Excel and did an F-test before doing my t-test for un-paired data.

F-Test Two-Sample for Variances

Treatment A Treatment B

Mean 42.9 51.65

Variance 315.5684211 334.2394737

Observations 20 20

df 19 19

F 0.944138697

P(F<=f) one-tail 0.450802423

F Critical one-tail 0.461201089

t-Test: