Barriers to Substance Use and Co-occurring Mental Health Disorder Treatment for Adults in the US

Description

Literature Review Paper This paper should be a minimum of 4 pages written, not including the title page, abstract and reference page. The paper should be formatted following APA guidelines. It is expected that you utilize at least 8 references for your review. Your aim is to review the literature on the topic of barriers to substance use and co-occuring mental disorder treatment in the US for adults.   What is a literature review? Nearly always a research question or proposal aims to fill a gap in knowledge or a gap in services. Before readers can judge the value of your research question, they have to be convinced that a gap does exist. Convince them by marshaling relevant facts. When a substantial body of knowledge relevant to your question or problem area exists, only a survey of the literature can establish the validity and importance of your question. Because scientific and technical knowledge is incremental, the existence of previously published research also provides certification that your topic is worthy of study. A literature review is the most common paper written in academic writing and is a necessary component of professional writing and research.  How to write a literature review: ·     Researchers always research topics they have a burning desire to know more about or they have an unanswered question lingering in their mind and they want to find answers. You need to be very curious about this topic or this project will be boring for you. ·       Once you have picked a topic area, you will want to narrow it down to a specific question or purpose. You will have to read some of the research in your topic area before you can narrow it down. For example, you may want to look at alcoholism in the context of a particular population or group e.g., women, teens, American Indians, or any other context. You may be interested in what treatments for alcoholism are most effective or you may be interested in why a certain group has a disproportionate number of people who suffer from alcoholism. If you are having a problem narrowing your question down, look for the section “future research or further research implications” in the articles you are reading. This section usually tells you what questions remain unanswered ·       Researchers typically conduct an extensive search of all the current literature related to the topic. This assignment requires you to utilize at least 8 references. While various articles, books, encyclopedias, etc. may provide you with background on your topic for Part 1, at least 6 references must be empirical articles describing previous research studies for Part 2. In some instances, you may find articles that can be used for introducing your topic as well as an example of past research.   ·       You may want to write a brief summary of the critical points of each article you read on note cards. You can then organize the note cards into patterns or categories. A simple list type discussion of the articles does not constitute a literature review and will not receive a passing grade. You’ll want to compare and contrast the various articles in a flowing manner. You might organize your articles from least recent to most recent, or from most traditional to most radical perspectives, or according to major aspects of the topic area (similar findings, similar populations, similar interventions). ·       Now that you have read all of your empirical articles, and organized your notes, you may create a detailed outline of your paper before you begin writing your literature review in order to frame the paper before writing begins.  Your literature review paper will consist of three parts (in addition to a title page, abstract and reference page).   1.     Introduce your topic (1-2 pages): a.      Scope of the topic or problem area (Barriers for SUDS and co-occurring mental health disorder treatment in the US among adults) b.     Significance of the topic to the SW profession or other Health and Human Services (this could be social policy significance, theoretical significance, and/or practice significance with an overall consideration of social justice).  c.      Topic statement (what will you study?) The barriers related to this kind of treatment i.e. affordability, lack of access, shame/guilt, not enough professionals doing this work, stigma, bad past experiences due to treatment, trauma   2.    3-4 page literature review a.      Synthesize 6-8 empirical studies related to your topic (quantitative and/or qualitative), obtained from academic journals in Social Work (or related health and human service fields). b.     The articles/sources should be grouped/presented together in the review by the themes found in the research (similar populations, similar interventions, or similar outcomes). The review should flow from topic to topic NOT citation to citation. c.      Briefly describe the methodology of each study when first discussing it [i.e. Tucker et al. (2012) in their pre-post study of the impact of adventure therapy on a sample of 110 community mental health youth clients, found significant decreases in problem severity in participants compared to youth who did have AT]. A sentence or two at most should describe the methods. You are not writing an annotated bibliography! d.     End your literature review with a summary statement of the gaps/needs in the previous research                and then introduce your research question to the reader. 3.     Introduce your main variables (identify the independent and dependent variables or main variable of interest, if a descriptive study).                                       i.     Conceptually define these variables. These conceptual definitions should offer a clear description of your proposed variables (for example, does “homelessness” in your study include families who utilize shelter services, individuals who are squatting with friends, teens who sleep in abandoned buildings, and/or other variations of homelessness?). The conceptualization of your variables may be based on examples from your literature review, although you can personalize the definitions for your specific study.                                        ii.     Suggest at least one way to operationalize these variables (this section will become the methods section of your final paper). How could the independent, dependent or main variable be measured in your study? This section (ii) should be no more than one paragraph long, and is intended to generate thought (and not stress!).  PLEASE NOTE: I AM REQUIRED TO SUBMIT ALL OF THE EMPIRICAL ARTICLES THAT YOU USED TO WRITE THIS LITERATURE REVIEW.