Exercise 27
Data was taken from the data table in the textbook and analyzed using SPSS.
1. What is the mean age of the sample data?
2. What percentage of patient never used tobacco?
3. What is the standard deviation for age?
4. Are there outliers among the values for age? Provide a rationale for your answer.
5. What is the range of age values?
6. What percentage of patients were taking infliximab?
7. What percentage of patients had rheumatoid arthritis as their diagnosis?
8. What percentage of patients had irritable bowel syndrome as their diagnosis?
9. What is the 95% CI for age?
10. What percentage of patients had psoriatic arthritis as their primary diagnosis?
Exercise 6
1. What are the frequency and percentage of the COPD patients in the severe airflow limitation group who are employed in the Eckerblad et al. (2014) study?
2. What percentage of the total sample is retired? What percentage of the total sample is on sick leave?
3. What is the total sample size of this study? What frequency and percentage of the total sample were still employed? Show your calculations and round your answer to the nearest whole percent.
4. What is the total percentage of the sample with a smoking history—either still smoking or former smokers? Is the smoking history for study participants clinically important? Provide a rationale for your answer.
5. What are pack years of smoking? Is there a significant difference between the moderate and severe airflow limitation groups regarding pack years of smoking? Provide a rationale for your answer.
6. What were the four most common psychological symptoms reported by this sample of patients with COPD? What percentage of these subjects experienced these symptoms? Was there a significant difference between the moderate and severe airflow limitation groups for psychological symptoms?
7. What frequency and percentage of the total sample used short-acting β2-agonists? Show your calculations and round to the nearest whole percent.
8. Is there a significant difference between the moderate and severe airflow limitation groups regarding the use of short-acting β2-agonists? Provide a rationale for your answer.
9. Was the percentage of COPD patients with moderate and severe airflow limitation using short-acting β2-agonists what you expected? Provide a rationale with documentation for your answer.
10. Are these findings ready for use in practice? Provide a rationale for your answer.
Exercise 8
1. The number of nursing students enrolled in a particular nursing program between the years of 2010 and 2016, respectively, were 563, 593, 606, 520, 563, 610, and 577. Determine the mean ( X ), median ( MD ), and mode of the number of the nursing students enrolled in this program. Show your calculations.
2. What is the mode for the variable inpatient complications in Table 2 of the Winkler et al. (2014) study? What percentage of the study participants had this complication?
3. Does the distribution of inpatient complications have a single mode, or is this distribution bimodal or multimodal? Provide a rationale for your answer.
4. As reported in Table 1 , what are the three most common cardiovascular medical history events in this study, and why is it clinically important to know the frequency of these events?
5. What are the mean and median lengths of stay (LOS) for the study participants?
6. Are the mean and median for LOS similar or different? What might this indicate about the distribution of the sample? Provide a rationale for your answer.
7. Examine the study results and determine the mode for arrhythmias experienced by the partici-pants. What was the second most common arrhythmia in this sample?
8. Was the most common arrhythmia in Question 7 related to LOS? Was this result statistically signifi cant? Provide a rationale for your answer.
9. What study variables were independently predictive of the 50 premature ventricular contractions (PVCs) per hour in this study?
10. In Table 1 , what race is the mode for this sample? Should these study fi ndings be generalized to American Indians with ACS? Provide a rationale for your answer.
Exercise 9
1. What were the name and type of measurement method used to measure Caring Practices in the Roch, Dubois, and Clarke (2014) study?
2. The data collected with the scale identifi ed in Questions 1 were at what level of measurement? Provide a rationale for your answer.
3. What were the subscales included in the CNPISS used to measure RNs ’ perceptions of their Caring Practices? Do these subscales seem relevant? Document your answer.
4. Which subscale for Caring Practices had the lowest mean? What does this result indicate?
What were the dispersion results for the Relational Care subscale of the Caring Practices in Table 2 ? What do these results indicate?
6. Which subscale of Caring Practices has the lowest dispersion or variation of scores? Provide a rationale for your answer.
7. Which subscale of Caring Practices had the highest mean? What do these results indicate? 8. Compare the Overall rating for Organizational Climate with the Overall rating of Caring Practices. What do these results indicate?
9. The response rate for the survey in this study was 45%. Is this a study strength or limitation? Provide a rationale for your answer.
10. What conclusions did the researchers make regarding the caring practices of the nurses in this study? How might these results affect your practice? Copyright © 2017, Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 97 Description of a Study Sample STATISTICAL TECHNIQUE IN REVIEW Most research reports describe the subjects or participants who comprise the study sample. This description of the sample is called the sample characteristics , which may be presented in a table and/or the narrative of the article. The sample characteristics are often presented for each of the groups in a study (i.e., intervention and control groups). Descriptive statistics are calculated to generate sample characteristics, and the type of statistic conducted depends on the level of measurement of the demographic variables included in a study ( Grove, Burns, & Gray, 2013 ). For example, data collected on gender is nominal level and can be described using frequencies, percentages, and mode. Measur-ing educational level usually produces ordinal data that can be described using frequen-cies, percentages, mode, median, and range. Obtaining each subject ’ s specifi c age is an example of ratio data that can be described using mean, range, and standard deviation. Interval and ratio data are analyzed with the same statistical techniques and are some-times referred to as interval/ratio-level data in this text. RESEARCH ARTICLE Source Oh, E. G., Yoo, J. Y., Lee, J. E., Hyun, S. S., Ko, I. S., & Chu, S. H. (2014). Effects of a three-month therapeutic lifestyle modifi cation program to improve bone health in postmeno-pausal Korean women in a rural community: A randomized controlled trial. Research in Nursing & Health, 37 (4), 292–301. Introduction Oh and colleagues (2014) conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to examine the effects of a therapeutic lifestyle modifi cation (TLM) intervention on the knowledge, self-effi cacy, and behaviors related to bone health in postmenopausal women in a rural com-munity. The study was conducted using a pretest-posttest control group design with a sample of 41 women randomly assigned to either the intervention ( n = 21) or control group ( n = 20). “The intervention group completed a 12-week, 24-session TLM program of individualized health monitoring, group health education, exercise, and calcium–vitamin D supplementation. Compared with the control group, the intervention group showed signifi cant increases in knowledge and self-effi cacy and improvement in diet and exercise after 12 weeks, providing evidence that a comprehensive TLM program can be effective in improving health behaviors to maintain bone health in women at high risk of osteoporosis” ( Oh et al., 2014 , p. 292).
