Measures of Effect in Nursing Practice
Nurses have a social responsibility to assess the effect of nursing practice on health promotion outcomes for patients, prevent injury and disease, and alleviate suffering. They are supposed to make clinical decisions using the evidentiary procedure. To do so, they need to grasp basic statistical principles so that statistical analysis can be objectively analyzed, and conclusions are drawn about the quality and significance of the findings (Colditz, 2016). Effect measurements are crucial in nursing practice in determining the extent of an interaction between a putative risk factor and the subsequent incidence of disease.
Risk Ratio and Rate Ratio
The relative risk is a measure of the strength of a correlation between exposure and disease, which can be used to determine whether an accurate correlation that has been observed is possibly causal. A risk ratio or rate ratio of more than 1.0 implies a positive correlation in the exposed group between exposure and outcome as opposed to the unexposed group. Tripepi et al. (2010) recorded a rate ratio of 1.61, suggesting a 61 percent higher risk of cardiovascular events in patients with elevated NE rates. This knowledge has allowed nurses to apply reasonable measures to educate patients on their health status.
Odds Ratio
Odds Ratio is a measure of how exposure is correlated with a result. The Odds Ratio represents the probability that, given exposure, an outcome will occur relative to the chances of the outcome that occur in the absence of that exposure. Matteucci et al. (2005) in their study discovered that children with chronic renal failure the chances of eccentric left ventricular hypertrophy is about 12 times higher than in controls after obtaining an odds ratio of 11.6. With such data, nurses can come up with proper medical procedures for children at high risk of chronic renal failure
The lack of use of impact indicators in the nursing practice can be counterproductive. Without accurate statistics, physicians cannot undertake proper medical procedures to provide reliable treatment for patients with a disease. Also, clinicians cannot apply reasonable measures to educate patients, families, and staff about the healthcare decisions and options they face due to predisposition to a risk factor a disease. The use of impact measures is critical in ensuring sufficient patient treatment.
References
Colditz, G. (2016). Nurses’ Health Study: demonstrating the impact of research and adopting new measures and approaches to increase the relevance and effect of cohort studies. Public Health Research & Practice, 26(3). doi: 10.17061/phrp2631628
Matteucci, M., Wühl, E., Picca, S., Mastrostefano, A., Rinelli, G., & Romano, C. et al. (2005). Left Ventricular Geometry in Children with Mild to Moderate Chronic Renal Insufficiency. Journal Of The American Society Of Nephrology, 17(1), 218-226. doi: 10.1681/asn.2005030276
Tripepi, G. Jager, K. J., Dekker, F. W. & Zoccali, C. (2010). Measures of effect in epidemiological research. Nephron Clinical Practice, 115(2), c91–c93.