Experimental becomes difficult to give a clear

Experimental becomes difficult to give a clear

Experimental Research Design 2011 The effects of an antidepressant medication on reducing symptoms of Major Depressive Disorders in males and females, ages 18 – 25, who have been diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorders and live in Pinellas County, Florida.

Major Depressive Disorders is based on the patient’s self-reported experiences, behavior reported by relatives or friends, and a mental status examination. With the variety of antidepressant medications and the ranges of doses, it becomes difficult to give a clear explanation of an operational definition for antidepressants.This experiment will target fifty males and fifty females between the ages of 18 – 25 years of age. All participants will have been diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, currently not on any antidepressants, and live in Pinellas County, Florida. The first step will begin with interviewing each individual privately asking question regarding their background, lifestyle, and experiences in life. We will then interview each of the individual’s parent asking questions that pertain to the individual’s behavior as far back as the age of 5 years old to the current age.Once the interview process is complete each individual will be given a Mental Status Examination.

At the conclusion of the Mental Status examination we will then determine the level of each individual’s Major Depressive Disorder and prescribe 25 males and 25 female’s antidepressant medication for the next twelve weeks. The remaining 25 males and 25 females will all receive a placebo for the next twelve weeks; think they are taking an antidepressant. At the end of weeks 4, 8 and 12 all individuals will have the Mental Status Examination re-administered.

The parents of each individual will go through the same interview process before the study, asking the same questions about their child’s behavior over the last twelve weeks. The goal of the experiment is to see if antidepressant (independent variable) will reduce symptoms (dependent variable) of Major Depressive Disorders. We will be looking for changes in the individual mood, attitude, and social behavior.

Measuring the frequency and intensity of the individual’s symptoms changes.The Target population will be a variety of 50 males and 50 female between the ages 18 – 25 living in Pinellas County, Florida. Ad placemnts will be distributed throughout a variety of doctor offices, health clinics, newspapers, colleges and pubs all located within Pinellas County. Some of the biases we may face are: not attracting the proper age group by placing ads in newspapers, getting too many/not enough college students, attracting people whom may have drinking issues and not be able to follow through with the study.The selection process will be carefully monitored insuring there is a variety between races, employment status, lifestyle, background upbringing, martial and income status. Being sure we are not faced with biases such as, all the same race or all unemployed individuals. The experimental group containing 25 males and 25 females will test the hypothesis by being prescribe antidepressants for 12 weeks.

While the control group of 25 males and 25 females will be given a placebo, which will have no effect, but can may create an effect because the control group think they are actually taking an antidepressant.If the control group and the experimental group have a similar outcome on the dependent variable measurement, I will conclude that taking antidepressant do not rude symptoms of Major Depressive Disorder. While if the experimental group has an increase in the dependent variable, measurement as compared to the control group, I will conclude that taking antidepressants do reduce symptoms of Major Depressive Disorder. Lastly if the experimental group has a decrease in the dependent variable measurement, as compared to the control group, I will conclude that taking antidepressants does not reduce symptoms, but actually make symptoms worse.A confounding of that can make the experiment inaccurate is having an individual that has been previously on antidepressants before the study, but not off the medication to exit the body completely. This can be prevented by possibly administering drug test along with the screening process. A second cofounding is having an individual that may be on other medications that could interfere with antidepressants and cause a drug interaction.

One way to prevent this is to ensure that the experimental group is not taking any medications.