The Impact Of Nurse Staffing Levels Essay Discussion Paper
Brief description of the selected problem that you identified for the focus of this Discussion and include your research question.
The selected problem is the relationship between nurse staffing and adverse events in hospital. In this case, nurse staffing refers to the nurse-to-patient ratio. On the other hand, an adverse event is perceived as any event in which care results in undesirable clinical outcome not caused by the underlying disease for which the patient came to hospital. Occurrence of an adverse event prolongs the patient’s stay in hospital, causes permanent harm to the patient, causes the patient to require life-saving intervention, and/or contributes to the patient’s death (Helming, Shields & Avino, 2020). A correlation study would examine the relationship between the two variables (nurse staffing and adverse events in hospital) with the research question being: “Are changes in nurse-to-patient ratio associated with changes in occurrence of adverse events in hospital?” It is expected that while there is a relationship, it does not imply causation as there may be a causal mechanism in the variables, or the causal mechanism may be due to other factors (Haegdorens et al., 2019) The Impact Of Nurse Staffing Levels Essay Discussion Paper.
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Explain your null hypothesis and alternate hypotheses for your research question and identify the dependent and independent variables that you would recommend to best support the research study.
The null hypothesis is: There is a relationship between nurse-to-patient ratio and occurrence of adverse events. The alternative hypothesis is: There is no relationship between nurse-to-patient ratio and occurrence of adverse events. The dependent variable is adverse events among patients in hospital while the independent variable is the nurse-to-patient ratio.
Explain your prediction for the expected relationship (positive or negative) between the variables that you identified.
A negative correlation coefficient is expected between the two variables identified. In this case, a high nurse-to-patient ratio will be associated with a low number of adverse events while a low nurse-to-patient ratio will be associated with a high number of adverse events The Impact Of Nurse Staffing Levels Essay Discussion Paper.
Why do you think that sort of relationship will exist?
A high nurse-to-patient ratio implies that there are more nurses to provide care to the patients. This ensures that the patients receive the care that they need and care opportunities are not missed so that occurrence of adverse events are anticipated and prevented. In contrast, if the nurse-to-patient ratio is low then there will be fewer nurses to care for the patients so that some care opportunities are missed resulting in higher incidences of adverse events (Haegdorens et al., 2019).
What other factors might affect the outcome?
The outcome is adverse events among patients in hospital. Three factors affect the outcome. First, nurse (health worker) factors to include attitudes, competence, knowledge, location of practice, specialty and age. Second, health system factors that include workload, training and care tools. Third, patient factors that include knowledge of adverse events. Besides the three mentioned factors, the occurrence of adverse events is affected by communication, teamwork, and documentation (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2020) The Impact Of Nurse Staffing Levels Essay Discussion Paper.
References
Haegdorens, F., Van Bogaert, P., De Meester, K. et al. The impact of nurse staffing levels and nurse’s education on patient mortality in medical and surgical wards: an observational multicentre study. BMC Health Services Research, 19, Article number 864. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-4688-7
Helming, M., Shields, D., & Avino, K. (2020). Dossey & Keegan’s Holistic Nursing: A Handbook for Practice (8th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC.
Stanhope, M., & Lancaster, J. (2020). Public Health Nursing: Population-Centered Health Care in the Community. Elsevier, Inc The Impact Of Nurse Staffing Levels Essay Discussion Paper.
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Post a brief description of the selected problem that you identified for the focus of this Discussion and include your research question. Be specific. Explain your null hypothesis and alternate hypotheses for your research question and identify the dependent and independent variables that you would recommend to best support the research study. Then, explain your prediction for the expected relationship (positive or negative) between the variables that you identified. Why do you think that sort of relationship will exist? What other factors might affect the outcome? Be specific and provide examples. “Much of the clinical research relevant to nursing explores whether a relationship exists between two patient characteristics. Understanding potentially related characteristics helps nurses better identify which physical, psychological, or demographic factors are associated with reason for concern” (American Nurse, 2011). In order to explore relationships among associated variables, a DNP-prepared nurse may utilize correlational research. This type of research allows for the exploration of connections and measuring of many variables. While not used to determine causality, this research can be integral in proving theory. So, when might an issue or topic need to be explored through relationships and associations? The Impact Of Nurse Staffing Levels Essay Discussion Paper