The study design consisted of analyses of the data collected from the experimental (1-hour rounds and 2-hour rounds) versus the control nursing units with a nonrandom assignment of hospital units to these respective groups (the assignment was the responsibility of chief nursing officers and nurse managers). Although the determined to conduct 1-hour or 2-hour nursing rounding was left up to the nursing executives at the participating hospitals, the principal investigator ensured that the sample was stratified as to type of unit (i.e., medical, surgical, or combined medical -- surgical), unit size, and frequency of nursing rounds.
7.
Adequacy of the Sample
The researchers identified 26 different reasons for the use of call lights by patients in their review of the literature and coded data from the 14 hospitals whose data satisfied the study criteria according to these reasons. The study examined 108,882 episodes of call light use from 27 units of these 14 hospitals during a 6-week period; the researchers report that the mean answers of call lights was 4,381.7 in the 15 experimental units in which the nursing round times were varied (total number of call lights answered was 65,726) and the mean for call light answers in the 12 control units was 3,596.3 (total number of call lights answered was 43,156).
8.
Directness of Measurement
The researchers ensured that adequate recordation procedures were in place at the participating hospitals for nursing staff to log the reasons for call light use by patients, although these procedures sometimes varied from unit to unit, with some hospitals using a manual approach while others enjoyed the use of an automated system.
9.
Measurement Error
The researchers acknowledge that they did not have access to the raw statistical...
Call light use measurements were also divided into 2-week time increments in order to compare the 1- or 2-hour interventions with the baseline data collected. Consequently, the study duration was 6 weeks at each of the participating hospitals which were allowed to begin the data collection during an approximately 2-1/2-month period with all data being collected by June 1, 2005.
11.
Reliability and Validity
The researchers excluded data collected from 8 of the participating hospitals from the data analysis, accounting for 19 nursing units, based on inadequate reliability and validity of data collection. Hospitals and units were excluded if rounding logs revealed that more than 5% of data elements were missing, suggesting that nursing staff members hadn't consistently performed the rounding and, therefore, had produced unreliable data.
12.
Statistical Tests - Quantitative Research
Using STATS data analysis software, the researchers tested their hypothesis concerning patient satisfaction by conducting t test comparisons of the means for patient satisfaction scores using data from the 1-hour and 2-hour nursing round units. To test their hypothesis concerning patient safety as measured by the incidence of patient falls, the researchers compared the 4 weeks before
