Austria, Kwien Anne I.

2CPH
STATISTICAL CRITIQUE:
PHARMACEUTICAL CARE FOR ASTHMA PATIENTS, A DEVELOPING COUNTRY'S
EXPERIENCE

The study is about the Pharmaceutical care for asthma patients: A developing country's
experience. They gather 66 patients for the study and used two questionnaires, ACT and AQLQ.
The study concluded that pharmaceutical care program showed a positive impact in improving
patients asthma-related QoL, lung function, and asthma control. By providing structured
Pharmaceutical care, clinical pharmacists can help asthma patients to achieve desired health
outcomes

In the baseline study of the characteristics of the control and intervention group, the researcher
could've presented a linear regression model to determine the factors that are associated to
having asthma. It may also be used to see the similar factors between the two groups. There's no
table or statistical data presented by the researcher on how he obtained the data in the baseline
study.

It is justifiable that the researcher used a paired t-test for the study but paired t-test is used to
determine if there is a significant difference between two means from single group. Since this
study involves two groups, controlled and intervention, it is more likely that it should take the
Inference in two independent means specifically the Welch's t-test.

The objective of the study aims at the outcome of providing optimal pharmaceutical care service
for asthma patients for an optimal pharmacotherapy, and a better quality of life. They've gather
66 patients with asthma and divided equally. The intervention group had health education,
counseling and care while the control group is not. Having said that, the null hypothesis of the
study is the mean scores of the intervention group is equal to the control group; the alternative
hypothesis is that the mean scores of the intervention group are greater than the scores of the
control group. With this type of hypothesis, its more likely that the researcher needs to use the
Welch's t-test.
Regarding the tables used, it is good. They present the tables well and provide all the
information. But they could've made another table indicating the scores for the whole control and
whole intervention to see the difference between the two groups since it is the objective of this
study. Figure 1 also may also give some confusion. The point is that it just becomes confusing
because some might be mistaken that this study involves 4 different groups.

In general the paired t-test was still successful because they've managed to give a good result.
Theyve rejecting the null hypothesis favoring the alternative hypothesis. They proved that there
is a greater mean score for intervention group than the controlled group.