Health Medical Homework Help

Consider a patient centered issue you have observed recently. Formulate a research question related to that issue. Identify the independent and dependent variable, hypothesis and type of hypothesis. What type of research study design would you use to address that issue, what type of sampling or sampling strategy would you use? Defend your choices with support from your textbook or other peer-reviewed journal source.

My answer to question

The health care sector requires individuals who are keen and flexible in undertaking their duties. A patient-centered incidence within the labor and delivery unit can help a medic formulate this research question: what maternal factors are associated with low birth weight in neonates? Through this research question, the dependent variable is the infant birth weight. Independent variables will include maternal factors like age, level of education, smoking and drug abuse, and body mass index pre- pregnancy. The simple hypothesis derived is; maternal factors are related to infant birth weight.

An experimental research design will be used in the study. Stratified sampling and simple random sampling will be used in the research. Exploratory research design would be preferred due to its ability to give researchers better control levels. The method can provide researchers with specific conclusions, and the research results can be duplicated. In sampling, a simple random sample was preferred due to the accuracy and ease of using it. In contrast, stratified sampling was selected due to its ability to provide equal coverage for the whole population, helping to eliminate biases (Stokes, P., 2017).

References 

Stokes, P. (2017). Research methods. Macmillan Education UK. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=EJtMDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR1&dq=Stokes,+P.+(2017).+Research+methods.+Macmillan+Education+UK.&ots=6WVbsDY6W0&sig=R19pPxrRDjE9oFonTdezItcCcko (Links to an external site.)

Professor’s response-your question is appropriate for nurses as well. Knowing the maternal factors that contribute to low birth weight assists the nurse in identifying and testing interventions. For example, smoking is a factor, discovered best through a nonexperimental descriptive study, that results in LBW babies. Now we can move forward to test interventions related to the factors uncovered:  “Does a nurse-led smoking cessation and counseling program effect the incidence of those who quit and sustain a smoke-free pregnancy throughout the pregnancy”?

Since the focus of this week’s discussion is pulling quantitative concepts together and the prompt is asking us about independent (cause) variable and dependent (outcome) variables and hypotheses, we know we should ask a question that has a nursing intervention or treatment.  These types of questions will be best investigated using a quantitative experimental or quasi-experimental design.  Which specific design depends on the problem statement, purpose statement and research question.

In the reformatted question above, what is the IV (influencer/cause–intervention/treatment) and what is the DV (effect or outcome)?

How would a research hypothesis be stated? How about a null hypothesis?

What type of hypothesis would you have? Simple or complex, associative or causal, directional or non-directional?