Abstract
Evidence to support the effectiveness of therapies commonly compares the outcomes between a group of individuals who received the therapy and a group of individuals who did not. Nurses must be able to interpret the statistics used to report these comparisons to determine not only whether there is a “real†(i.e. statistically significant) difference between the outcomes of the groups, but also whether that difference is large enough and precise enough to be clinically meaningful. The statistics involved depend on whether the outcome is expressed as a categorical (e.g. yes/no) or a continuous (e.g. pounds, length of stay) measure. When confidence intervals, rather than hypothesis tests, are used to determine whether the differences are statistically significant, nurses receive additional information on which to base practice decisions.
Notes
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Sigma Membership
Epsilon Xi
Type
Article
Format Type
Text-based Document
Study Design/Type
N/A
Research Approach
N/A
Keywords:
Evidence-based Practice, Statistics, Precision
Recommended Citation
Grace, Jeanne T., "Essential skills for evidence-based practice: Statistics for therapy questions" (2010). Individual Articles. 8.
https://www.sigmarepository.org/individual_articles/8
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Publisher
Mahidol University, Thailand
Version
Publisher's Version
Rights Holder
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Review Type
External Review: Previously Published Material
Acquisition
Proxy-submission
Date of Issue
2010-01-01
Full Text of Presentation
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