Research Application Article

It is really helpful to start reading professional research articles to see how these concepts are used in actual study scenarios. Give it a try in this article, where the researchers examined the relationship between patients' perception about coffee consumption and distress symptoms in patients with inflammatory bowel disease:

Barthel, C. Wiegand, S., Scharl, S., et al. (2015). Patients' perception on the impact of coffee consumption in inflammatory bowel disease: Friend or foe? A patient survey. Nutrition Journal, 14(78). doi:10.1186/s12937-015-0070-8

1.What was the purpose of this study?

2.How are the respondents with inflammatory bowel disease classified?

3.What was the alpha level specified for the study?

4.How many patients with Crohn's disease (CD) responded to the survey? Were they all included in the study?

5.Look at Figure 1 in the article for questions 5-9. How many subjects with CD were included in the study?

6.Which group of patients had the highest percentage who did not drink coffee?

7.Which group had the largest absolute number of patients who did not drink coffee?

8.What percentage of the patients with CD do not drink coffee?

9.What percentage of the sample has CD?

10.Among coffee drinkers, did they prefer caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee?

11.Thirty-eight percent of the sample reported that coffee has an effect on their disease symptoms. Was this the same for the CD and ulcerative colitis (UC) group?

12.Was this difference significant? How do you know?

13.Was the percentage of patients who reported that coffee negatively influenced their intestinal symptoms higher in the CD or UC group? Was this a significant difference? How do you know?

14.Did more of those who felt coffee had a positive impact on their symptoms consume coffee regularly? Was this difference significant? How do you know?

15.What percentage of those who reported a negative effect from coffee still consumed coffee?

16.Look at Figure 3 in the article. Is there a significant difference in the percentage of subjects with CD and UC who report coffee effects their symptoms?