The study was conducted with the sole aim of describing the variance in selected nurse outcome classification (NOC). Another important objective for this study was to establish the scores for outcome change among hospitalized older patients with pneumonia (Scherb et al., 2013). Apart from pneumonia, there was an aim of establishing the heart failure which could be explained by age and length of stay.
Study Type
The type of study presented entails a systematic review of critical assessment as well as evaluation of the research studies which is geared at addressing the clinical issue. Again, looking at the method used, the researchers have applied an organized study method which entails location, assembling and evaluation of an existing body of literature on a specific issue, in this case, being pneumonia and heart failure patients.
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Threats to Internal and External Validity
There are a number of aspects which might cause the internal validity of a study to be in question. One of the major causes of internal threats is the instrumentation particularly when it has been subjected to effective change. Another threat is the statistical regression. Looking at this study, there was the threat of statistical regression as it was noted that the number of explanatory variables for analysis was limited because of the sample size. For external validity, there was the threat of experimental interference where the validity of about 74 selected patients was in doubt. There are other internal and external threats which were not included by authors but were present in this study. Looking at the external threats, there was on the effects of inclusion and exclusion criteria. For instance, there was the inclusion of LOS without an analysis of its effect in the study.
Ethical Standards Assurance
To ensure ethical aspects of the study prevail, the researchers obtained approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) both for the hospital and the two universities. All the data used were de-identified as per the safe harbor requirements for the use of private and personal health information.
References
Scherb, C. A., Head, B. J., Hertzog, M., Swanson, E., Reed, D., Maas, M. L., ... & Gillette, S. (2013). Evaluation of outcome change scores for patients with pneumonia or heart failure. Western Journal of Nursing Research , 35 (1), 117-140.
