Single Subject Design
Introduction
Single systems (subject) design can be explained as application frequency to know patients’ variability, which is then applied by the physician or the social work expertise to deliver the intervention that will be effective to their to the discovered problem. The first point of developing is to understand what the patient does. If one was to do a group study, they should understand what each person does to adjust the treatment methods accordingly (Schoenecker, 2017). The single-subject design uses the repeated assessment of a given phenomenon that is primarily behaviors over a given period and then helps determine the group’s proper intervention. The paper will aim to evaluate the implication of Single-subject Design. It helps intervene with different patients by critically analyzing the case study of Paula Cortez, a patient hospitalized with multiple complications. There will be an evaluation of psychosocial intervention discussion as part of the single-subject design study on how it can be measured and evaluated. The conclusion will make a recap of the entire Single Subject design discussion.
The implication of Single-Subject Design
A different feature makes the single-subject design that involves the group, or the patient becomes the subject of the study described as the unit of analysis, which can be a group with a certain defect. The patient or group’s analysis is given out, and more description is referred to in another . The single-subject design has a dependent variable that should be defined in operation and repeatedly measured. The independent variable is actively analyzed (Schoenecker, 2017). A baseline status illustrates a flow that should produce comparable interventions. Experimentation control is achieved by introducing and withdrawing or reversing shaking or even iterative conditioning of the independent variable. Social validity can be established by making documentation interventions functionally connected to change in socially significant aspects.
Paula Cortez Intervention Plan
In the case of Paula Cortez, she is indifferent to conditions that need single-subject design intervention. She is in social, medical, and psychological conditions that all require special interventions. From the analysis with different colleagues, all her conditions require is a well-balanced single-subject design that will enhance her conditions and hint at a good intervention (Mesa, & Restrepo, 2019). She has series of behaviors like smoking, undergoing different stress
| Conditions | Medical condition | Psychological conditions | Medical consequence | social condition |
| Paul is HIV positive and pregnant, under Medical conditions and paralyzed hands, and HAART medication. | Paula has a mental and physical disability, which is an ingredient of the stress ad incapacitates her from taking care of the newborn. | Paula has a chance to have a healthy baby but taking the foot ulcer medication, and there will be a chance the baby will be addicted. | Paula has difficulties in her social life. Although she has previously made some hard decisions, the decision of her pregnancy and baby could harsh. | |
| Interventions | for Paula to keep good health herself and the baby, she should have the good consistency of taking HAART medication every day to minimize | Due to the mental condition that she is in, she should be on the psychiatrist for the entire pregnancy for psychological therapy and make her recover from stress and depression. Though abortion could be a solution, good psychological therapy will ensure that Paula stabilizes mentally. | Paula needs to keep the medical conditions and attend consistently to the prenatal clinics to have a healthy baby, but the decision to terminate a pregnancy is a personal condition. |
As social work working with Paula, the problem that will be of crucial attention is the Psychological condition that she is undergoing. Having all medical conditions, social conditions, and the consequence of the medical conditions, it will be critical to focus on the psychological needs intervention, which can significantly contribute to the other aspects of health conditions and employ a Psychosocial Intervention approach. Paula has made some bad mistakes in life that need psychological repair, and keeping the baby may not be the best since she is incapacitated psychologically. They are not in good times with the father’s baby, and financial conditions are also straining. The ultimate goal should be to help her in the decisions and make acceptance and move on. She should not be placed in the Psychiatrist unit for the entire pregnancy, but she should have arranged a week each month because she needs to have a wide view of other aspects like nature and prepare for the baby. Every week in a month, a psychiatrist should undergo a check, and the monitoring is made.
Summary of literation that led to choosing Psychosocial Intervention Approach
The report that was published by the Journal of Applied Behaviour Analysis Mental health and drug use y approximation affects 20% of the Americans ad they are liked to morbidity and mortality. Quick approaches are needed to control and intervene with the scenario. Thethat has been randomly done has shown that many psychosocial interventions can effectively treat those conditions and such disorders (Barbui et al., 2020). The problem is that these interventions are not being used in routine care. The difference between what has been established and current practice has been established as a “quality chasm” in general health and psychological problems and substance.
Further research has been carried out for establishing mental interventions as evidence-based practice (EBP). Different approaches have been put in place to work on mental problems, but the data is not still well put. Still, psychosocial intervention has been proved to be one of the approaches that can provide better therapy to people with psychological problems (Barbui et al., 2020). That drives the psychosocial intervention definition, where it can be explained as the intervention that focuses on the psychological behaviors and social behaviors over biological conditions. It involves caregiving skills, emotional interventions, and cognitive intervention.
The great purpose for conducting the single-systems subject because it gives finer details of a person or groups. The single-subject study helps to achieve the behavioral and the course of the problem which the patient is experiencing and can assist in offering primary care and provides the physician or the social worker with information that is evidence-based that allow them to make an accurate assessment of the problem the patient or group is having (Thomlison & Corcoran, 2007). Unlike the case study, the single-subject study gives more ultimate answers without creating more questions for future study. Such occurrence also is used to give multiple times of intervening the problem and multiple periods of measurement.
Different measures are used to monitor and evaluate the psychosocial intervention as a single subject design. The evaluation can use critical data in intervention, the data are collected, and the targets are set in a given period. For example, if the patient is suffering from mental problems, the goals are set on the recovery measures. For example, in the first three months, the patient should have recovered from the basic issue associated with depression-like engaging with productive conversation reduced anger (Thomlison & Corcoran, 2007). Then utilization of the resource, resource that is used can be an of whether the single subject is working. The measures include using an experiment used to test how the intervention was effective to the patient or the group, for example, using the A-B-A-B formula to ensure that different variables are captured that shows the independent and dependent variables.
In Paula’s case, choosing the psychosocial intervention as a single subject system, the independent variable could be aspects like sleep deprivation, and the dependent variable could be the scores to other performance or the time factor. Such tests exhibit some form of validity and reliability. Reliability is the results attained after measuring different versions of the same measurements. Validity can be hard to assess but is observed by accessing different data and the attained results. For example, when an intervention like extended tuition has been initiated on student performance, the reliability of tuition extension will be different in the province, and validity will be the performance attained and the student’s response. Same way in social intervention, reliability and validity are attained. The baseline measure will be attained by compiling the physician and OB nurses’ data and medical outcome to get the threshold for intervention and progressive achievement.
The follow-up measure should be administered regularly with consisted medical monitoring and a weekly visit to the psychiatrist room for the mental health intervention for the pregnancy period and three months post the pregnancy if she agrees to keep the pregnancy. The criteria to use to ensure the intervention is effective is the filling of the data on how Paula is responding to various issues like taking medication, the viewing of things, the change in body function like attaining the required weight having thoughtful conversations, and engaging in more interactive activities (Thomlison & Corcoran, 2007). The periodic measurements can very critical to keep on with Paula’s resources because they will show the response and know whether the psychosocial intervention approach is enough to counter the mental problems she is undergoing.
Conclusion
The single-subject design is critical in responding to various aspects of a patient under different conditions by carrying out critically evidence-based interventions. Such results from the single-subject design can be used in social work to conduct counseling programs and other psychiatric interventions. It has been shown to have good external validity and generalizability, which is crucial in obtaining the right results. The approach is cost-effective because the findings come from a similar context.
References
Ainamani, H. E., Gumisiriza, N., & Rukundo, G. Z. (2020). Mental health problems related to COVID-19: A call for psychosocial interventions in Uganda. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 12(7), 809.
Barbui, C., Purgato, M., Abdulmalik, J., Acarturk, C., Eaton, J., Gastaldon, C., & Thornicroft, G. (2020). Efficacy of psychosocial interventions for mental health outcomes in low-income and middle-income countries: an umbrella review. The Lancet Psychiatry, 7(2), 162-172.
Schoenecker, K. C. (2017). Implementing student success and services in a California community college district (Doctoral dissertation, San Francisco State University).
Mesa, C., & Restrepo, M. A. (2019). Effects of a family literacy program for Latino parents: Evidence from a single-subject design. Language, speech, and hearing services in schools, 50(3), 356-372.
Thomlison, B., & Corcoran, K. (2007). The evidence-based internship: A field manual. Oxford University Press.
