Qualitative Data

Nursing profession research report:

Introduction:

A research undertaken entitled nursing research findings in Europe report about the current state of the nursing profession. The research was coordinated by Teresa Moreno in 2004 and the findings of this research showed that very few countries were dedicated to nursing research programs and also nursing research strategies despite an increased funding by the government towards research programs. The research also reports a lack of nursing research that enhance work in the nursing profession and also the lack of generation and the utilisation of research findings. [1]

Other findings also show that despite research reports having a wide source of nursing knowledge there are no set measure regarding time devoted to researching for nursing academics, also that majority of nursing researchers obtain their doctorate when undertaking part time post doctorial work, further it was found out that a few number of doctorial education offered insufficient preparation to nurses for them to become supervisors. [2]

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This research also reported that the majority of nurses were females and that the problem of ageing among the nurses and failure to recruit more nurses would result into a decline in the number of the nurses in the near future, this would create a shortage of professionals resulting to a decline in the quality of health care offered to the population.

Quantitive data:

In order to undertake statistical inferences on qualitative data there is need to convert the data into quantitive data, the process of converting qualitative data into quantitive data requires the use of a scale that will aid convert the data into numerical data, however when we have open ended questions where the answer is no or yes converting this type of data only requires the use of a scale that gives the result as 0 and 1. [3]

Given our responses on various questions the first step is to group the responses and questions into various categories depending on the knowledge they are intended to gather, next it requires that we collect data from a sample size using either questionnaires or through an interview, when we collect this data we take the first step of categorising the responses, next we undertake conversion of qualitative data into quantitative data and finally we undertake statistical inferences on the data. [4]

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Qualitative Data

In our case our responses compose of three respondents, this respondents are clinical nurses and the aim of the study was to collect information on whether they read research reports and how often, whether they use these research report knowledge in their day to day tasks, the sequence of finding information when faced with a query, how information obtained from research reports compare to that given by colleagues and how they judge the validity of the research reports and how they validate them.

The findings were collected through the use of a face to face interview, a face to face interview is one of the reliable ways of collection of statistical data, and all the data collected is qualitative data. The advantage of collecting data using an interview is that the research agent can clarify information and that more information on a particular response can be collected.

The research questions were aimed at collecting the following information:

a) How often research reports are read?

b) The sources of the research reports:

c) What the reader is looking for by reading research reports;

d) How often the nurse make decisions using information collected from research reports:

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e) The sequence of information source when one is faced with a query:

f) Comparison of information sources:

g) How the nurse validates a research report:

Using the above themes the results from the sample of three respondents was collected and the following were the results, the table shows the themes of the questions and the responses collected from respondent 1, 2, and 3 as follows:

respondent

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1

2

3

How often  research reports are read?

often

often

often

The sources  of the research reports:

journals

journals  and others

journals

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What the  reader is looking for by reading research reports;

update

update

update

How often  the nurse make decisions using information collected from research reports:

non

rare

rare

The  sequence of information source when one is faced with a query:

colleagues  then research reports

research  reports then colleagues

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colleagues  then research reports

Comparison  of information sources:

How the  nurse validates a research report:

own  experience and judgement

sponsors  and when it was written and who wrote it

own  experience

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Results:

From the above collected data it was clear that all the respondents often read research reports, this however differs in terms of frequency, the source of data ranges from journals provided at the workplace, subscribed journals and also the internet. Two respondents confirmed using journals available at the workplace often and only one respondent confirmed to use the journals available and at the same time subscribed journals from other sources. All the respondents also accepted that they read journals to update themselves and at the same time when they are faced with problems.

Regarding the use of knowledge and information gained in the process it is clear that one respondent has never used this knowledge to undertake nursing practices while the other two respondents have rarely used this knowledge and information and that they use this information only when they are faced with problems, the following is an analysis of the qualitative data:

Validation of report research:

From the research it is evident that individuals will validate research articles by the use of information such as sponsors of research articles, their own judgement, the date of publication of the research article and the publisher and the author of research reports, from the respondents the following was the data frequency table:

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The table shows the results of frequency of responses on how the respondents validate research reports. The table also shows the percentage frequency recorded:

validation

frequency

percentage

sponsors

2

40%

own judgement

1

20%

date of  publication

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1

20%

publisher and  author

1

20%

5

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From the above table it is clear that more individuals will validate research reports on the basis of sponsors of those research reports, the diagram below summarises the percentage frequency of these responses:

The chart shows that the level of respondents that will validate research reports by use of sponsors is 40% and those who will validate the reports using own judgement, date of publication and publisher and author amount to 20% of the respondents for all of them as shown in the chart.

Sequence of source of information:

On the sequence of source of information showed that the entire respondent will first refer to clinical guidelines first and some will then choose to refer from colleagues while other will choose to use information from research reports, the table below shows the sequence of information source where we consider colleagues and research reports:

The table below shows the sequence of source of information, it compares whether colleagues comes first or reports first, the table shows the responses of the three respondents and their choice, example respondent one consults colleagues 1st and research reports 2nd.

sequence  of source

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respondent

colleagues

research  reports

1

1st

2nd

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2

2nd

1st

3

1st

2nd

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frequency

percentage  frequency

colleagues  first

2

67%

research  report first

1

33%

total

3

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The extended table shows the frequency for those who prefer the first source of information, 2 individuals accepted that they will consult colleagues first while only one respondent will first consult research reports.

More of the respondents will therefore prefer to consult with colleagues first while less respondents will prefer to gain information from research reports. The diagram below demonstrates the frequency of this response:

Comparison of information sources:

From the responses it was required that one make a comparison between the various sources of information, the sources compared included research reports and colleagues, from the findings it was clear that more individuals stated that research reports were better than information from colleagues and own experience, the table shows the frequency table for this respondents

The table below shows the comparison of source of information, it gives the frequency of occurrence of the following responses; research journals better than colleagues and own experience and own experience and colleagues better

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frequency

percentage  frequency

research  journals better than colleagues and own experience

2

67%

own  experience and colleagues better

1

33%

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3

The data in the table above can be represented in a chart as follows:

From the above chart it is clear that more individuals state that information from research reports is better than information from colleagues and own experience, 67% of the respondent stated so while the rest stated that own experience and information from colleagues was better than information from journals and research reports.

Frequency of use of information in tasks at hand:

Despite a high number of respondents stating that they often read research reports, there was no evidence of use of this information in the tasks at and in the day to day tasks, respondents stated that they rarely use this information in performing tasks.

Regarding the response no and rare use of information to undertake tasks the table below shows the frequency of these responses, the table shows the frequency of responses:

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frequency

no

1

rare

2

This data in the table above can be simplified in a diagram as follows:

This shows that only a small percentage of respondents have not used the information in their day to day task while 67% confirm use of such knowledge gained from research reports in performing tasks.

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Further research:

There is need to have further research under this topic regarding the use of research reports in clinical practices, one major draw back of our findings is that we have used a very small sample, as compared to the population size it would be biased to draw conclusions based only on a sample size whose n=3, for this reason therefore there is need to use a large sample size in order to avoid statistical biasness and this can be done by interviewing more people using the same questionnaire.

There is also need to research on the percentage of men and women in our research, this will help us compare the responses with regard to the nursing profession and its characteristics, for this reason a further study should be undertaken and stating whether the respondent is male or female, this study will therefore help us to determine whether the male of female use the knowledge they gain from research reports, how they validate these results.

Another research topic that should be undertaken is one that tend to investigate the number of nurses that are interested for further studies or those who have already attended colleges to expand their education and knowledge level, this will help us to analyse how our nurses in the country are dedicated to their jobs and what will be the state of the nursing profession in the coming years, better with more knowledgeable nurses or worse in the coming years.

Conclusion:

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The data provided in this paper is quantitive data and therefore there was need to change this data for the purpose of statistical inferences, this was done through the introduction of a scale that assigns numbers to the qualitative data.

Regarding validation of research reports the respondents identified various factors they use to validate reports which include sponsors of research reports, their own judgement, the date of publication of the research article and the publisher and the author of research reports, from our findings it was clear that more respondents validate research papers on the basis of sponsors of the research report.

According to responses regarding the sequence of source of information when nurse practitioners are faced with queries it was found out that all nurses refer to their clinical guidelines and most of them will refer from their colleagues while a few of the respondents will prefer to get information from research reports firsts.

General findings of the data show that research reports on nursing are widely lead by nursing professionals, however the usage of the information and knowledge gained from the readings are not put into practice and at least not until a problem arises, many however read these reports in order to update themselves on new findings reported by these research reports.

There is therefore the need to encourage the use of knowledge gained by reading these research findings and through this the nursing profession will advance in terms of better health care to the community and therefore a healthier population across the nation. Further research studies should be aimed at finding out how many nurses are interested in furthering their studies and why and how they find this impossible or possible.

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References:

Bluman (2000) Elementary Statistics: A Step by Step Approach, McGraw Hill press, New York

D. Bridge (1993) Statistics: An Introduction to Quantitative and qualitative Research, Rand McNally publishers, Michigan

Denise Polit and Cheryl Tatano (2004) Nursing Research: Principles and Methods Williams and Wilkins publishers, London

Teresa Moreno, Alexandra C. and Claire Hale (2005) research on nursing in Europe, Journal of Research in Nursing 10: 679-692

Krebiel and Berenson (2000) Statistics, McGraw  Hill, New York

Helen Streubert and Dona Ronald (2006) Qualitative Research in Nursing, Williams and Wilkins publishers, London

Henry Caleb (2000) Statistics: an introduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford

Michael Crawley (2005) Statistics: An Introduction Using R, John Wiley and Sons publishers, New York

Patricia Munhall (2001) Nursing Research: A Qualitative Perspective, Jones and Bartlett Publishers, New York

Jennifer Barnett (2003) Nursing Research: Ten Studies in Patient Care, Wiley publishers, New York

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[1] Teresa Moreno, Alejandra C. and Claire Hale (2005) research on nursing in Europe, Journal of Research in Nursing 10: 679-692

[2] Teresa Moreno, Alejandra C. and Claire Hale (2005) research on nursing in Europe, Journal of Research in Nursing 10: 679-692

[3] Bridge (1993) Statistics: An Introduction to Quantitative and qualitative Research, Rand McNally publishers, Michigan

[4] Bridge (1993) Statistics: An Introduction to Quantitative and qualitative Research, Rand McNally publishers, Michigan

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