Research Journal 3

What is your research question? Have you decided to change it at all? And, if you have, how do I know that the way in which this question is formulated is appropriate to conduct a literature review with a systematic approach? 

My research question is: Upon finding evidence that smoking and depression do in fact have a correlation, is an individual who has already began smoking just as likely to develop depression as an individual who is already developed depression to begin smoking? And when looking at certain groups of individuals who all have something in common, is one group more likely than another to develop a correlation. I have decided to slightly change my question. I have added the section where it asks about certain groups being more susceptible to the development of depression and smoking. It offers a good debate and the has been multiple research studies done that offer insight to the answer to my question.

How do I know that the remit of the method itself is selecting the research, rather than just you on a whim? + 1 thing you found interesting + how you imagine using the source

Article 6

Khan, S., Arif, A. A., Laditka, J. N., & Racine, E. F. (2015). Prenatal exposure to secondhand smoke may increase the risk of postpartum depressive symptoms. Journal of Public Health, 37(3), 406-411. doi:10.1093/pubmed/fdv083

This article comes from the Oxford Academic Journal of Public Health. It is the first article that I will be using from this particularly scholarly article journal. Because in this particular article the purpose is to find of there is a correlation between being exposed to secondhand smoke during pregnancy and developing post partum depression, it is considered a case control research study. There is another type of research that this article also has the characteristics of. That would be a cross- sectional research method. This is because the data was collected though independent surveys that were submitted. It is relevant to my topic because a key part of my question involves looking at groups that have something in common. This group is pregnant women. Other articles that I have found research teens and others research individuals from a certain geographical area. It will add to my results section of my paper because the findings of this study where that those women who were exposed to smoke while pregnant do have a higher risk of developing postpartum depression. I found this article to be interesting because I was not aware that this correlation was significant in many women.

Article 7

Breslau, N., & Johnson, E. O. (2000). Predicting Smoking Cessation and Major Depression in Nicotine-Dependent Smokers. American Journal of Public Health.

This article is about the research done to find if the smokers who are dependent on nicotine are more likely to develop depression than those who smoke, but are not nicotine dependent. This article focuses on the age group of 24 to 33 years old. It was found that both groups of people (dependent and nondependent) had a higher lifetime rate of major depression. Because this study was done to find of there was a correlation, it is a case control study. Unlike the other study from Article 6, the data was not sent in through questionnaires. The individuals’ habits were watched more closely through a long period of time. They did not just send in what information they wanted to share. It is relevant to my topic because it directly answers my research question. It answers whether or not there is a correlation between smoking and depression. There is a specific group of people being researched in this study as well. I thought that it was interesting that any level of occurance for smoking, whether it is only occasional or more consistent, can increase your risk for developing depression.

Article 8

Taylor, G., Mcneill, A., Girling, A., Farley, A., Lindson-Hawley, N., & Aveyard, P. (2014). Change in mental health after smoking cessation: systematic review and meta-analysis. Bmj, 348(Feb13 1). doi:10.1136/bmj.g1151

This article is researching the effects of quitting smoking on mental health. It was found that if an individual smokes and has depression, then quits smoking, their mental health status will improve. Although this method of finding a correlation is not the same as the other articles I have found, it still shows that a correlation does exist and will still be useful in my research paper. It just offers another method of obtaining data. It is relevant because it still involves the factors of smoking and depression. I thought that this article was interesting because it is a different method than the other articles and despite the differences, the results were still the same. This is a case control study because it is looking for a correlation.

Article 9

Frerichs, R. R., Aneshensel, C. S., Clark, V. A., & Yokopenic, P. (1981). Smoking and depression: a community survey. American Journal of Public Health, 71(6), 637-640. doi:10.2105/ajph.71.6.637

This article is from the American Journal of Public Health, like the majority of my other articles. It offers the same results as most other studies regarding the topic of smoking and depression. There is a high rate of depression in those individuals who do smoke and those who do not smoke have a lower rate of developing depression. This will add to my results section of my paper by having even more evidence to suggest that there is a correlation. This is again a case control study because of the correlation of factors. It will be beneficial to have many articles that all have the same results from the different studies. It will only make my paper more credible and reliable.

Article 10

Lasser, K., MD, & Boyd, W., MD. (200). Smoking and Mental Illness A Population-Based Prevalence Study. JAMA. doi:doi:10.1001/jama.284.20.2606

This article explores the prevalence of depression among smokers. The results show that those who are more severely depressed have a higher lifetime smoking rate. This article is a case control study and also a cross sectionals study. It is cross sectional because data was collected through surveys. This is a good way to reach a very large audience and gather a lot of data. The more data that is collected, the more reliable a study becomes. More subjects means that the results have less likely to be the result of chance. It will add to the results section of my paper by aligning the results of this study with the other studies that I have found.