Author Question: An outpatient's daughter has been using a diary to track the appearance of her mother's decubitus ... (Read 68 times)

colton · **on:** Jul 8, 2018

An outpatient's daughter has been using a diary to track the appearance of her mother's decubitus ulcer when the daughter performs the daily dressing change.

The patient has been newly consented for participation in the trial of a new product presumed to accelerate healing and prevent infection. The researcher instructs the daughter in use of the new product and the use of a scale for tracking the ulcer's healing. Scale items are change in total area (width times depth), drainage color, surrounding tissue integrity, pain, and smell. What are the advantages of using a scale instead of a diary? (Select all that apply.)
a. It reduces all items to a Likert scale.
b. It makes wound care easier.
c. It forces a level of precision that may or may not be present in a diary.
d. It produces numerical data that the researcher can easily analyze in order to provide evidence of difference between the new method and the old method.
e. It makes sure that subjects all will have daily recordings of the variables the researcher intends to measure.

Question 2

Which of the following would be non-physiologic measures that could be used in nursing research? (Select all that apply.)

a. Surveys that determine the percentage of counseling appointments that have decreased psychological pain in the 72 hours following each appointment
b. Photographs of chimpanzee chromosomes
c. Observation ratings of the depth of a pressure ulcer
d. Surgical interventions intended to ablate pain
e. Opinion surveys of what patients want to have included in their discharge teaching after outpatient surgery

hramirez205 · **Reply #1 on:** Jul 8, 2018

Answer to Question 1

ANS: C, D, E
A rating scale allows the observer to rate the behavior or event on a scale. Scales, a form of self-report, are a more precise means of measuring phenomena than are questionnaires. The majority of scales have been developed to measure psychosocial variables. However, self-reports can be obtained on physiological variables such as pain, nausea, or functional capacity by using scaling techniques as discussed earlier in this chapter. This method provides more information for analysis than does the use of dichotomous data, which indicate only that the behavior either occurred or did not occur. Scales, another form of self-reporting, are more precise in measuring phenomena than are questionnaires and have been developed to measure psychosocial and physiological variables. The types of scales include the rating scale, Likert scale, semantic differential scale, and the visual analog scale.

Answer to Question 2

ANS: A, E
Physiological measures include two categories: biophysical and biochemical measures. For example, biophysical measures might include the use of the stethoscope and sphygmomanometer to measure blood pressure and a biochemical measure might include the laboratory value for total cholesterol. Self-report has been used effectively to obtain physiological information and may be particularly useful when the subjects are not in closely monitored settings such as hospitals, clinics, or research facilities. For some variables, self-report may be the only means of obtaining the information. Such may be the case when study participants experience a physiological phenomenon that cannot be observed or measured by others.