In the research that was conducted in the first article entitled; the use of a hydro fiber dressing that contains silver, in the filling of the abscess cavity after the incision and the drainage in emergency department (Alimov, Lovecchio, Sinha, Foster, & Drachman, 2013), clinical study design was used. This study design took the form of prospective randomized control trial. The sample size in this case was ninety-two patients (Alimov, Lovecchio, Sinha, Foster, & Drachman, 2013). These patients were more than 18 years of age and were suffering from cutaneous abscess. The ninety-two study participants had been randomly assigned into two groups. These are the intervention group (Skillman, Aquacel, New Jersey, and Convatec) and the iodoform group (Alimov, Lovecchio, Sinha, Foster, & Drachman, 2013). The iodoform group is the control group in this case. Of these two groups, it was noted that there were no differences in terms of demography as well as their clinical characteristics.
The weaknesses that are evident in data collection are that the researchers should have randomly selected the patients in two equal groups that is 46 persons per each group. The follow-up period is also not consistent. Inconsistency comes in whereby the study claims that patients were followed up in a span of the first two weeks (Alimov, Lovecchio, Sinha, Foster, & Drachman, 2013), though the follow-up was not continuous. However, the strength of this study is that it had both the intervention group and the control group. The intervention group comprised of four subgroups depending on the intended intervention. These four groups were based on interventions such as Convatec, New Jersey, Aquacel, and Skillman) (Alimov, Lovecchio, Sinha, Foster, & Drachman, 2013).The other strength of the study is that it was able to provide a comparison on the level of pain between the patients initial visit and the first follow-up.
When it comes to the second article that dealt with the incision and the drainage of the subcutaneous abscess without packing, (Leinwand, Downing, Slater, Beck, Burton, & Moyer, 2013) clinical study design was also used. In this regard, the clinical study took the form of retrogressive randomized control trial. The sample size in this study was a hundred patients, who were reported to be suffering from subcutaneous abscesses back in between May 2008 and December 2010. These 100 patients were assigned into two groups namely, the packing and the non-packing groups (Leinwand, Downing, Slater, Beck, Burton, & Moyer, 2013). In this case, there were some exceptions in that some patients portraying some given conditions could not be considered. Such conditions include; patients who are immunosuppressed, or rather those suffering from diabetes. The other exception was in case the patient had a perinial or a pilonidal abscess. Last but not least, the other exception was on whether the abscess is secondary to the previous operation. These exceptions can be used as a basis for comparison among the sample, to the patients who will be seeking treatment.
There are several weaknesses of the study in terms of data collection, with one of them being that it was not age specific. Apart from that, the other weakness is that; the patients were only clinically evaluated, in case there was suspicion of recurrence in the follow-up calls on the day seven and thirty (Leinwand, Downing, Slater, Beck, Burton, & Moyer, 2013). These two days were referred to as postoperative. The other weakness is that, of the 100 patients, only 85 patients managed to complete the study. The study does not indicate the whereabouts of the 15 patients. On the other hand, the strength of this study is that it omitted other patients who had some other conditions that could interfere with the results. Such exceptional cases were the diabetic, immunosuppressed (Leinwand, Downing, Slater, Beck, Burton, & Moyer, 2013), among others.
References
Alimov, V., Lovecchio, F., Sinha, M., Foster, K. N., & Drachman, D. (2013). Use of a Silver-containing hydro fiber dressing in filling the cavity related after incision and drainage at the emergency department: a randomized controlled trial. Advances in skin & wound care, 26(1), 20-25.
Leinwand, M., Downing, M., Slater, D., Beck, M., Burton, K., & Moyer, D. (2013).
Incision and drainage of subcutaneous abscesses without the use of packing. Journal of pediatric surgery, 48(9), 1962-1965.
