Free Nursing Dissertations - A Noticeable Strength Of This Trial Was Its Robust Measurement Strategy With
A noticeable strength of this trial was its robust measurement strategy with ten different measurement scales being employed to minimise observer bias. (Cochran and Cox. 1957)
A major shortcoming of this trial is that it attempted to contrast a number of different intervention strategies within the already small intervention cohort. The results therefore cannot really be seen as having any great generalisable significance. It may provide useful information, but as being suitable for inclusion in a firm evidence base, it could be considered sadly lacking. If we contrast this with the paper by Soomro, (Soomro GM 2004) which considers the efficacy of various aspects of cognitive behaviour therapy in the self harm group we can see that the latter’s entry cohort of nearly 500 has a much greater statistical significance and therefore a much greater relevance.
Paper 4
Methodological issues in nursing research, Nurses attitudes towards clients who self-harm, McAllister A, Creedy D, Moyle W, Farrugia C, Journal of advanced nursing Volume 40, Issue 5, Page 578, December 2002.
In many respects, this paper is a combination of many of the elements that we have discussed in the preceding three papers. It is designed to explore the attitude that receiving nurses have in the A&E dept, when they deal with patients who have self harmed.
Paper 1 (Weber M 2002) made the unsupported statement that nurses are less than empathetic when dealing with the self harm patient. This paper presents the evidence base behind this assumption. There is a section which reviews previous work in the area and comments on the rather counter intuitive fact that mental health professionals (who might be expected to me more empathetic and understanding) tend to be less tolerant and supportive as they typically see this type of patient as being primarily manipulative. (Anderson M 1997)
The professed aim of this study was to allow the development of a suitable tool in the form of a questionnaire. It was structured with three distinct elements. Firstly was the literature review (which we have already alluded to). Secondly they canvassed the opinions of a group of 10 post graduate nurses to set the baseline of nursing attitudes. This was used as the basis for the third element which was the construction and evaluation of a questionnaire.
This was drafted in the form of the ADSHQ questionnaire.
We should note that only 35% of the questionnaires were returned which is a major source of bias, since one might assume that the few respondents were those that felt strongly enough to respond and therefore their views, by definition, may not be typical. A strong point in this survey’s favour was the fact that those who did respond had an average of 17 years of nursing experience.
The results of the paper were rather disappointing with no significant correlation being found between attitudes and the many variables investigated.
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