This assignment gives your first experience of reading and reacting to journal literature in Allied Health Research.  Many students never realize there's a world beyond the textbooks and so it's all new to them.  You learn that in your specialty there are things printed every day that are new.  You will have to keep up to maintain your professional competency.  Journals are a resource that you can use, both here in school and when you get out in a professional situation.  The assignment is carefully sequenced with clear due dates and instructions. 

I believe that all of you, as future health care professionals, should be aware of how you can keep up on new developments in allied health and the issues that surround them.  Therefore, the objectives of this assignment are to familiarize you with the available literature in medicine and allied health.  

To meet the objectives of the assignment, you will:

·         Read and study, in detail, one current article on a topic covered in class from any of the three journals mentioned above. 

·         You will submit two assigned journal articles as Discussion Forums, and you may submit 2 or more of your own for credit in ALHE4060.  Ask the instructor if you wish to submit more than 2.

Details of What You Need To Do: 

1.       Go to the library and check out the issues of the journal.  You can also use the Internet for a resource.

2.       TIP: Most Journals publish a subject index in their December issue.  This is extremely useful and convenient when performing searches on subjects. 

3.       Look through the selected article ass well as the rest of that issue of the journal and several other recent issues to get a clear understanding of:

4.       what kinds of information is published,

5.       what audience it is intended to serve

6.       Whether references for further information are given. 

7.       Complete the Journal Article Review Form and submit by the due date. 

To receive full credit for this assignment, you must answer all questions on the review form and submit it by the due date.  Here is the information you should submit to your Research website:

Title of Journal

Article________Serum cholesterol concentrations in parasuicide_

Title of Journal

_______________The British Medical Journal______________________

Volume___________310__________ Date __06____/_24___/___1995___ Page Number(s) _____1632(5)_________

·         What organization is responsible for publishing the journal you chose?

The British Medical Association

·         What is your overall evaluation of this article?

_____Poor          ______Fair            ______Good        ___+__Very Good       _____Excellent

·         Why did you choose to review this particular article?

I chose to review this article because it pertains to my research involving how low cholesterol levels are linked to violent suicide.

·         How would you rate this article as a tool for teaching a student about cardiopulmonary physiology, radiography, or another allied health specialty? 

Students:               ____Poor       ____Fair       _____Good     _____Very Good      __+__Excellent

Teachers:               ____Poor       ____Fair       _____Good     _____Very Good      __+__Excellent

Patients:                 ____Poor       ___Fair       ____Good     ___+__Very Good      _____Excellent

·         Comment on the readability of this article. 

This article was very easy to follow.  The author did use some medical terms that could be unclear to some people but for the most part I feel that this article would be able to be used by students and patients alike with a little more explanation given to the patients before they read it. The reader is able to flow straight through the article as they are reading it.

·         Course Topics covered:

.  Violent and non-violent attempts of suicide, low serum cholesterol concentrations being associated with violent acts of suicide, conditions that need to be assessed when taking cholesterol levels such as alcoholism, drug misuse, hypertension, etc., the use of control groups in an experiment to test results against, types of high violence methods of suicide such as shooting, hanging, suffocating, drowning, etc., neuronal function, cholesterol effects of neuronal function, and serotonin reuptake. 

·         Brief Summary:

This article is looking at the levels of cholesterol in people that have committed suicide, particularly violent suicide, than in people who have not.  The article explains to the reader the different types of suicide and what would constitute the different classifications (violent or non-violent).  The author goes over a lot of possible confounding factors that could cause the cholesterol levels to be lower, such as the drug misuse or alcoholism, thin blood due to the trauma of the accident, acute illnesses, and others.  The article also refers to a study done in regards to this topic that shows that there are lower levels of cholesterol found in people who have committed violent acts of suicide than in those who have committed non-violent or no suicide at all. 

·         Identify and attempt to explain three (3) terms, procedures or concepts that were unfamiliar to you when reviewing this article.

-          Parasuicide – I was not aware of this term before I read through the article.  As the article states, “parasuicide is an act of non-fatal outcome in which an individual deliberately initiates a non-habitual behavior that without intervention will causes self harm…and which is aimed at realizing changes that the persons desire via the actual or expected physical consequences.”

-          Heterozygote [beta] thalassaemia – I was unaware of the meaning of this term after reading through the journal article.  This term refers to a rare type of blood defect in which the patient may experience problems such as the early destruction of red blood cells. In this type of defect patients are usually asymptomatic but do produce abnormal hematological findings.

-          I did not know before I read this article that lower plasma cholesterol concentrations lead to an increase in serotonin reuptake by the brain which in turn causes the levels of serotonin in the brain to be diminished.  I was aware of the serotonin levels being lower in people with low cholesterol but I did not know this was due to an increase in the serotonin reuptake. 

·         Detail the strengths/weaknesses of this article.

-          Strengths – This article did a good job of distinguishing for the reader the difference between types of suicide being violent or non-violent.  Most of the time, in the average persons life, suicide is only referred to as suicide without being necessarily always classified as violent or non-violent.  It is important for the student or patient to understand what the topic at hand truly is.  The article also did an excellent job of looking at possible confounding factors in the research and then telling why these factors would not have confounded the experiment that was done, proving that there is an association between low cholesterol levels and violent suicide attempts. 

-          Weaknesses – I feel that the author should have defined more terms in the article.  Sometimes a simple one sentence explanation to go along with a complicated term used is all that a person needs to be able to better understand a topic.  I do not feel that there were many weaknesses besides the use of terms in this article.  As I said before I feel like the article flowed very well and gave the reader a very broad and information filled look at this topic.

·         How might this article be useful to you in your further studies and career?

This article will be helpful to me for use in my further studies and career because of the variety of information that is in the article.  Not only will it help me to explain to others how low cholesterol levels are associated with violent attempts at suicide but it will also keep me aware of different factors that could contribute to a person having low cholesterol levels.  It is also important in keeping me and others aware of possible health factors that could contribute to aggressive behavior, such as violent suicide.

·         Does the article include a list of references/citations that can be used to find more information on the topics they cover? 

Yes

Your Name: ______________Laura Urbin________________ Date: __07__/__15____/__06___