Change From Qualitative To Quantitative Research
Introduction
Quantitative research involves investigation of quantitative properties of a phenomenon and their relationships. Quantitative research aims at developing theories, mathematical models and hypotheses relating to given phenomena. Measurement of data is essential during quantitative research since this is what connects mathematical expression of quantitative relationships and empirical observation. Quantitative methods are the techniques employed when gathering measurable data. Examples of quantitative methods are tables, statistics and graphs. Quantitative research enables a researcher to give testable and precise expressions to qualitative information.
This research study involves a pre-assessment clinic whose role is to assess the needs of patients in order to determine if day surgery is suitable or not. It will show a quantitative research on the patients’ perceptions regarding the nurse-led preadmission clinic.
Discussion
Research problem
The research problem was to find out the perceptions pf surgery patients regarding their decision making on choices over repair of hernia. This was determined by undertaking a quantitative study on these surgery patients. A recent survey has shown that there is lack of adequate nursing intervention in providing information and psychological support to patients prior to day surgery. The study was conducted using 30 patients and results presented quantitatively using tables, graphs and statistics. The findings indicated that a greater percentage of the surgery patients had inadequate information or knowledge regarding decision making (Malster, 2000).
Research purpose
The purpose of the research was to find out the number of patients who had relevant information on the pre-assessment process done prior to day surgery. The research also aimed at finding out the perception of a given number of patients on nurse-led preadmission clinic (Malster, 2000).
Research question
The research question that the entire research process was supposed to answer is the how many patients felt that they received sufficient information and preparation prior to hernia day surgery. The findings were to clearly show the perception of the research process participants towards the pre-assessment clinics.
Under ethical considerations, ethical approval or consent was obtained from the ethic’s committee prior to carrying out the quantitative research study. It was necessary for the committee to issue the researcher a written consent signed in order to avoid any irregularities. The patients and or participants were thoroughly informed and given relevant information about the entire research process and what was expected of them (Fay, 2009).
It was also essential to inform the participants about the entire research procedure and the risks that could arise. Each of the participants submitted a written consent that clearly stated that they had agreed to participate in the research process. It was also essential to inform the participants that they were free to withdraw from the research process at any given stage they felt like. Hence, the research process was not mandatory and only the willing patients could participate.
The research design used was sampling. The sample size was 30 patients or participants who underwent a day hernia surgery. These participants were given relevant information and support prior to undergoing hernia surgery. One type of sampling method used was adaptive sampling which sampled the rare population of patients who were supposed to undergo the hernia surgery (Chiulli, 1999).
Data analysis was also carried out by dividing the samples into smaller parts. The patients were divided into small samples consisting of urology, gynecology and general surgery patient. The process of dividing the whole sample size into smaller samples made data presentation and analysis much easy.
There were survey questions in form of questionnaires which were given to each of the participants belonging to the respective samples or sections. The questions asked revolved around several themes for instance the participants’ experiences at the clinic, referrals made, procedures involved and the psychological preparation given to the participants. Analysis of these survey questions was done using the answers given by each of the participants. A considerable time was taken by the researchers to analyze the questionnaires prior to data presentation and analysis. The figures were also noted down for instance the number of patients who gave a certain answer to a given question. Convenience type of sampling was also used. This was made possible through sampling the patents that already required hernia surgery. These patients proved to be easy to survey (Mahin, 2010).
There was formulation of hypotheses to help participants in filling the questionnaires. A hypothesis is defined as a tentative answer to given problem. A hypothesis can either be a true hypothesis or a null hypothesis. Use of hypotheses makes collection and analysis of data collected much easy.
The sample size was defined as the number of questionnaires issued to participants. In this case 30 questionnaires were issued since there were 30 patients or participants involved (Malster, 2000).
Data collection was done in the given participants homes a few days after the surgery. It involved collection of the filled questionnaires and counterchecking to see whether all the questions had been answered correctly. The findings were noted down after the entire research process. In this case, it was clear that almost half of the participants claimed to lack adequate information or support prior to undergoing surgery. The rest of the participants were satisfied with the support given to them before undergoing surgery (Mahin, 2010).
The data collected was presented in form of graphs and tables. The tables were divided into a given number of rows and columns. For instance one column contained the number of patients who were satisfied with the support given prior to surgery while the other column contained the number of patients satisfied with support given and the entire hernia surgery process. The figures obtained from the tables were used to plot graphs. Use of graphs simplifies the whole process of quantitative presentation of data (Fay, 2009).
Conclusion
It is evident that quantitative research is a perfect way of obtaining the final results and proving or disproving a given hypothesis. In this study, the quantitative experiments were used to test results obtained through qualitative experiments. Quantitative analysis enables the researcher to obtain the right findings from the research process and present them in form of tables and graphs that can be easily interpreted.
References
Chiulli R. M. (1999) Quantitative analysis: An introduction. Taylor and Francis.
Fay H. (2009) An Advanced Course in Quantitative Analysis: With Explanatory notes.
BiblioBazaar, LLC.
Mahin E. G. (2010) Quantitative Analysis. BiblioBazaar.
Malster M. (2000) Managing hypersensitive patients in day surgery: the development
of a new protocol. The journal of One-Day Surgery 10, 6-7
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