Test Bank for The Practice of Nursing Research Appraisal, Synthesis, and Generation of Evidence

1. In which way did Florence Nightingale contribute to evidence-based practice? a. She conducted research on outcomes and the power of nursing for change. b. She was the first woman elected to the Royal Statistical Society. c. She gathered data that changed the care of hospitalized soldiers. d. She calculated mortality rates under varying conditions. ANS: C Nightingale gathered data on soldier morbidity and mortality rates and the factors influencing them and presented her results in tables and pie charts, a sophisticated type of data presentation for the period. Nightingale’s research enabled her to instigate attitudinal, organizational, and social changes. She changed the attitudes of the military and society toward the care of the sick. The military began to view the sick as having the right to adequate food, suitable quarters, and appropriate medical treatment, which greatly reduced the mortality rate. 2. If a nurse manager wants to study how well last year’s policies governing implementation of a “bundle” of interventions to prevent cross-contamination of MRSA have been working in her units, which of the following strategies would she use? ANS: A a. Outcomes research b. Intervention research c. Ethnographic research d. Experimental research Outcomes research emerged as an important methodology for documenting the effectiveness of health care services in the 1980s and 1990s. This type of research evolved from the quality assessment and quality assurance functions that originated with the professional standards review organizations (PSROs) in 1972. During the 1980s, William Roper, the director of the Health Care Finance Administration (HCFA), promoted outcomes research for determining the quality and costeffectiveness of patient care. Intervention research investigates the effectiveness of a nursing intervention in achieving the desired outcome or outcomes in a natural setting. Through the use of ethnographic research, different cultures are described, compared, and contrasted to add to our understanding of the impact of culture on human behavior and health. Experimental studies have three main characteristics: (1) a controlled manipulation of at least one treatment variable (independent variable), (2) administration of the treatment to some of the subjects in the study (experimental group) and not to others (control group), and (3) random selection of subjects or random assignment of subjects to groups, or both. Experimental studies usually are conducted in highly controlled settings, such as laboratories or research units in clinical agencies. 3. A researcher publishes a paper describing how faith, pain, adherence to therapy, and meditation interact during the rehabilitation process. The description of the process is based on many interviews the researcher conducted with persons during and following rehabilitation experiences. The methodology is ANS: D Grounded theory methodology emphasizes observation and the development of practice-based intuitive relationships among variables. Throughout the study, the researcher formulates, tests, and redevelops propositions until a theory evolves. The theory developed is “grounded,” or has its roots in, the data from which it was derived. a. Ethnography b. Phenomenology c. Historical research d. Grounded theory