Nursing Research Design: Sampling & Nosocomial Infections
This paper outlines a quantitative research design aimed at investigating whether nurse hand-washing frequency reduces nosocomial infection rates in a hospital ward. The study proposes using video surveillance to observe and record nurses' hand hygiene behaviors throughout the workday, while controlling for patient vulnerability variables such as underlying illness and immune status. The paper discusses random sampling methodology, ethical considerations under the American Nurses Association Code of Ethics, and the importance of transparency with study participants. It also addresses additional infection-control precautions that nurses should observe and how these would be accounted for in data analysis.
- Introduction to Quantitative Research and Random Sampling: Defines quantitative research and random sampling methods
- Nosocomial Infections and the Hand-Washing Study Design: Proposes video-based hand-washing observation study
- Controlling for Patient Variables: Addresses confounding patient risk and immune factors
- Video Observation Methodology and Additional Precautions: Details surveillance approach and other infection controls
- Ethical Considerations in Nursing Research: Covers ethics, anonymity, and participant transparency
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- The paper clearly connects an abstract research method (random sampling) to a concrete clinical problem (nosocomial infection prevention), making the methodology feel purposeful rather than theoretical.
- It anticipates methodological objections — such as unequal patient risk exposure — and proposes specific controls, demonstrating critical thinking about research design limitations.
- The inclusion of an ethics discussion grounds the study in professional standards and shows awareness of real-world research constraints in healthcare settings.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates applied research design reasoning: the writer takes a theoretical construct (quantitative random sampling) and systematically works through how it would function in a specific nursing context. Each design decision is justified by acknowledging a potential confound and proposing a methodological response, which models the kind of iterative problem-solving expected in research proposals.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a brief definition of quantitative research and random sampling, then introduces the specific clinical problem. Subsequent sections move logically from study design, to variable control, to data collection method, and finally to ethical obligations. This funnel structure — broad methodology narrowing to a specific, ethically bounded study — is well-suited to an undergraduate nursing research proposal.
Introduction to Quantitative Research and Random Sampling
Quantitative research asks the statistical question of how many, how much, or how often, and attempts to quantify the extent to which a target group is inclined to behave in a certain manner or to hold certain opinions. It can be helpful in establishing a correlation between certain positive and negative behaviors and desirable outcomes. There are a variety of ways to conduct quantitative research. One of the most effective is the use of random sampling, often regarded as the most pure and statistically correct — and usually the most costly — method of selection (Mori 2008). As Lane (2007) explains, "In random sampling, each item or element of the population has an equal chance of being chosen at each draw. A sample is random if the method for obtaining the sample meets the criterion of randomness (each element having an equal chance at each draw). The actual composition of the sample itself does not determine whether or not it was a random sample."
Nosocomial Infections and the Hand-Washing Study Design
To begin preliminary research into ways to prevent nosocomial infections — infections that originate or occur in a hospital or hospital-like setting — I propose conducting a research study on a staff of nurses. Nosocomial infections are dangerous because they are often antibiotic-resistant. Patients tend to be susceptible to such infections when they have broken skin or injuries with exposed mucous membranes (Abedon, 1998). One possible way to limit the spread of such infections is hand-washing. "These pathogens also tend to become incorporated into the normal flora of hospital workers," and once acquired, these "opportunistic infections thus tend to be both very available for transmission to patients and not easily treated once infections are under way" (Abedon, 1998).
However, because it is difficult to monitor or quantify, in a busy workday, how much a nurse does or does not wash his or her hands, the following research structure is proposed: the ward of nurses in question would be filmed over the course of the day, and their hand-washing behavior would be observed by a monitor. Researchers would track how much and how often particular nurses washed their hands during the day using the recorded film.
Controlling for Patient Variables
One immediate concern is that some nurses might deal with patients who are more susceptible to nosocomial infections than others. The likelihood of contracting such infections is often highly dependent on the individual patient's underlying condition. Patients with urinary tract infections, surgical wounds, respiratory tract ailments, skin lesions (especially burns), blood diseases, gastrointestinal tract infections, and central nervous system complaints are all more susceptible than patients with other illnesses that do not involve exposed wounds or tissue (Abedon, 1998). To account for this, the illnesses of patients treated by the nurses would be recorded, and nurses who treated a disproportionately high or low number of high-risk patients would be excluded from the study.
Additional variables could also affect results — for example, patients with weakened immune systems might be more likely to contract an infection regardless of nurse behavior. To minimize the risk of other patient variables interfering with the data, nurses whose hand-washing methods would be subject to study would be chosen from the wider sample at random, with the controls on extreme cases described above. Nurses would be identified as frequent or low-frequency hand-washers depending on how often they washed their hands during patient treatment, before, and after. The number of nosocomial infections among the patients they cared for would likewise be tracked, and the extent to which frequent hand-washing prevents the spread of infectious agents responsible for these antibiotic-resistant conditions would be discerned by examining the correlation between infection rates and nurse hand-washing frequency.
Works Cited
Abedon, Stephen. (5 Sept 1998). "Nosocomial infections." Retrieved 26 Jan 2008 at
"American Nurses Association: Code of ethics." (2008). ANA. Retrieved 26 Jan 2008 at
Lane, David. (2007). "Random sampling." HyperStat. Retrieved 26 Jan 2008 at http://davidmlane.com/hyperstat/A35563.html
Mori, Ipos. (2004). "Quantitative research." Retrieved 26 Jan 2008 at
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.