How to Collect and Use Data in Nursing Studies

Collecting and using data for evidence-based nursing studies is always a tricky task because you not only need to be sensitive about the patient population but also at the same time you need to ascertain the effectiveness of the intervention strategy. You should make sure that the data collected for your nursing assignment is nuanced, rich, and also holistic in nature. 

Data collection methods for your nursing homework vary according to the type of intervention, patient population, and outcome desired. However, you should make sure that your clinical data collection strategy should be unbiased, clear, and also in adherence to the research hypothesis or the clinical question under consideration. It is essential that you communicate your research goals prior to the data collection and adhere to the codes of ethics and limitations whilst using your collected data for the purpose of the nursing research. 

If you need help with data collection for your nursing report then you can check out our Nursing Assignment Help page and we will assist you with your data collection and analysis. In the meantime, here you can check out the different modes of data collection for nursing research and learn about how to implement them in your nursing research report. 

Interviews

Be it structured or unstructured, interviews are one of the major ways of data collection as far as the nursing research are concerned. Interviews are known to give the most direct and accurate response from the population or the patient which helps the researcher to analyze the information more effectively. Interviews are considered to be one of the most effective instruments of data collection and it gives the researcher deep insights into a particular phenomenon. 

The interviews vary in accordance with the kind of research you are aiming at and it should complement the clinical question under consideration. For instance an open-ended interview will normally comprise of one or two questions where the participants will be allowed to answer in a detailed and unstructured manner. This kind of interview is quite prevalent in the cases of the qualitative assessments where the researcher can take into account the various aspects of the patient or population under consideration. 

On the other hand a structured interview will provide the interviewees with specific sets of alternatives (which best describes their situation) to choose from and based on that the nursing researcher will make the final deduction of his/her hypothesis. This kind of interview is pretty common in the case of quantitative analysis of nursing assignments. 

Read more: Importance of Psychology in Nursing

Focus Group

Focus Group is a very common data collection technique as far as nursing research is concerned. In such cases a group of 6 to 12 patients or members belonging to the target population are gathered together and encouraged to talk about the question or issue under consideration. Focus groups are normally monitored by moderators or facilitators who gather the views and inputs provided by the different participants within the group. This is indeed a very rich data collection method in nursing studies especially if your target population is very small and concentrated to a particular geographical location. 

Focus groups are often used for obtaining data for qualitative nursing studies as the environment is much more relaxed and there is no structured questionnaire that needs to be followed. Some of the nursing theorists prefer focus groups over one-on-one interview of the patient population mostly due to the fact that the participants are not more comfortable sharing their problems and issues when they are surrounded by people who are undergoing similar medical conditions. On the other hand a focus group discussion generates a pretty high amount of data which needs to be transcribed for the purpose of the research. Also at the same time the moderators of the group need to be highly skilled in organizing such discussions so that the desired outcomes are obtained from this data collection method. 

Observation

In some of the nursing research projects data and information are collected by the method of observation. This again provides nurses with an opportunity to obtain a wide variety of information by observing a specific group of patients or individuals under medical intervention. This kind of data collection is applicable in the case of qualitative nursing research and analysis. The nursing researcher in this case needs to take field notes in order to record the things that he/she has observed during this data collection method. 

Just like the focus group, this technique of data collection is also much unstructured and essentially it generates a huge amount of information which the researcher needs to process and analyze in order to derive to the final conclusion. 

If you need assistance with your nursing data collection and analysis you can always visit our website and opt for “take my online course” option. Helpwithassignment.com is the number #1 online nursing assignment help website and we have assisted nursing students, from all across the globe, in writing nursing project reports. 

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Reference: 

https://ebn.bmj.com/content/21/3/63

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4377563/