Assessment of the Quality of Sampling Procedures Reported in Clinical Nursing Research: A Pilot Study

摘要

This pilot study assessed the reliability of an instrument specifically designed to assist in the scientific evaluation of the quality of clinical nursing research. This instrument also was used to identify the major errors in sampling in clinical nursing research in a random sample of articles published in selected clinical nursing journals in 1986. A retrospective, nonexperimental pilot study was conducted for 30 articles using the Research Assessment Form (RAF). Content validity and inter-and intra-reliability were established for all but the interferential statistical section of the RAF. Of the 30 articles reviewed, 96.7% contained a major error in sampling, indicating the need for nursing educators to emphasize sampling procedures in their research classes and for publishers and manuscript reviewers to address sampling considerations in their criteria for selecting articles for publication. The majority of the articles did not provide sufficient information to allow for mathematical calculation of statistical power. Although the statistical power for detecting a large effect was good in the 10 studies in which power was estimated, the power for detecting a medium or small effect was low. This suggests the need for modification of the RAF to include a question that could assess whether the failure to find statistical significance was related to low power. (sdw)