Cries Syndrome: Caused by Television or Just Bad Taste? A medical condition know

Question

Cries Syndrome: Caused by Television or Just Bad Taste?

A medical condition known as Cries syndrome has been described as occurring among children 7 to 9 years old. The condition is characterized by episodes of uninterrupted crying lasting at least an hour per day for 3 consecutive days. The diagnosis also includes symptoms of sore throat, runny nose, and fever which precedes the onset of the crying and are severe enough to keep the child out of school.

Investigators identifie 100 children with Cries syndrome. For each Cries syn- drome child a classmate was chosen for comparison from among those who did not miss school. The study was conducted more than one month after the onset of symptoms. The investigators examined 20 variables, which included all the fac- tors they could think of as being potentially associated with Cries syndrome. They collected data on all medication use, number of spankings, hours of television viewing, and number of hours at home, as well as 16 other variables.

Using pictures, they asked the children to identify the medications they had taken while they had Cries syndrome. Their classmates without Cries syndrome were also asked to use the pictures to identify medications taken during the same time period. The investigators then asked each child to classify each medica- tion taken as a good-tasting or bad-tasting medication. The data on spankings were obtained from the primary caregiver. The investigators found the following data:

Percentage of children who reported taking bad-tasting medication

Cries syndrome: 90% Controls: 10%

Average number of spankings per day

Cries syndrome: 1 Controls: 2

Average number of television viewing hours per day

Cries syndrome: 8 (range 5 to 12) Controls: 2 (range 0 to 4)

Among the 20 variables, analyzed one at a time, the above were the only ones that were statistically signif cant using the usual statistical methods. The p values were 0.05 except for the hours of television, which had a P-value of 0.001. The investigators drew the following conclusions:

Bad-tasting medication is a contributory cause of Cries syndrome because it was strongly associated with Cries syndrome.

Spanking protects children from Cries syndrome because the controls had an increased frequency of being spanked.

Television viewing at least 4 hours per day is required for the development of Cries syndrome because all children with Cries syndrome and none of the controls watched television more than 4 hours per day during the period under investigation.

Because Cries syndrome patients were 9 times as likely to take bad-tasting medication, the investigators concluded that removing bad-tasting medication from the market would eliminate almost 90% of Cries syndrome cases among children like those in this investigation.

In addition, regular spanking of all children 7 to 9 years old should be widely used as a method of preventing Cries syndrome.

Now to get an idea of what you will be learning in the “Studying a Study” section, see if you can answer the following questions:

1. Is an association established between the use of bad-tasting medicine and Cries

syndrome?

2. Is it established that the spankings occurred prior to the development of Cries

syndrome?

3. Is it established that altering the frequency of spankings will alter the frequency

of Cries syndrome?

4. Is it established that television viewing of at least 4 hours per day is a necessary cause of Cries syndrome?

5.Can the investigators conclude that removing bad-tasting medication from the market would reduce the frequency of Cries syndrome by almost 90% among children similar to those in the study?

6. Can the investigators conclude that regular spanking of all children 7 to 9 years old should be widely used as a method of preventing Cries syndrome?

Explanation / Answer

1. Yes, an association is established between the use of bad tasting medicine and cries syndrome.Bad-tasting medication is a contributory cause of Cries syndrome because it was strongly associated with Cries syndrome.

Percentage of children who reported taking bad-tasting medication

Cries syndrome: 90% Controls: 10%

2.No, it is not established that the spankings occurred prior to the development of Cries syndrome.Spanking protects children from Cries syndrome because the controls had an increased frequency of being spanked.

Average number of spankings per day

Cries syndrome: 1 Controls: 2

4.Yes, it is established that television viewing of atleast 4hours per day is a necessary cause of cries syndrome.Because all children with Cries syndrome and none of the controls watched television more than 4 hours per day during the period under investigation.

5.Yes, the investigators can conclude that removing bad-tasting medication from the market would reduce the frequency of Cries syndrome by almost 90% among children similar to those in the study.Because Cries syndrome patients were 9 times as likely to take bad-tasting medication.

Percentage of children who reported taking bad-tasting medication

Cries syndrome: 90% Controls: 10%

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse C
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.