This document discusses various methods and tools for collecting, processing, and analyzing nursing data and information. It describes different sources of information like libraries, databases, and search engines. It also discusses ethical issues around copyright and fair use. Common data collection methods in nursing include questionnaires, interviews, and electronic documentation. Quantitative data is analyzed statistically while qualitative data requires identifying themes. Cohort and case-control studies are described as common research designs.

1. Chapter 23
Nursing
Research: Data
Collection,
Processing,
and Analysis

2. Information Literacy
Intellectual framework for finding,
understanding, evaluating, and using
information activities that may be
accomplished in part through fluency with
information technology and sound
investigative methods, but most importantly,
through critical reasoning and discernment

3. Acquiring Previous Knowledge
Through Internet/Library Holdings
• Information is available through so many
venues, libraries, special interest organizations,
media, community resources, and the Internet
in increasingly unfiltered formats, healthcare
practitioners must inevitably question
information authenticity, validity, and reliability

4. Professional Online Databases
Databases range from specific to general and
act as collection points by aggregating
information like abstracts and articles from
many different journals; two such databases
include the Cumulative Index to Nursing and
Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) and
MEDLINE.

5. Search Engines
Allow users to surf the Web and find
information on nearly anything, although
many researchers steer clear of search engines
because of the vast amounts of
unsubstantiated information

6. Electronic Library Catalogs
Making full use of available library resources
serves to strengthen information literacy skills,
thus enabling learners to master content and
extend their investigations, become more self-
directed, and assume greater control over
their own learning

7. Fair Use of Information and Sharing
• Copyright laws in the world of technology are
notoriously misunderstood.
• The same copyright laws that cover physical
books, artwork, and other creative material
are still applicable in the digital world.

8. Fair Use of Information and Sharing
• Almost all software, music CDs, and movie DVDs
come with restrictions of how and when copies
may be made.
• Most computer software developers allow for a
backup copy of the software without restriction.
• Technology advances have made the sharing of
information easy and extremely fast, thus open to
violations of copyright and fair use.

9. Fair Use of Information and Sharing
• Avoid downloading music illegally from the Internet
and do not use information from the Internet
without permission to do so or citing the reference
appropriately.
• Health care organizations that allow access to the
Internet from a network computer should ensure
that users are well aware of and compliant with
copyright and fair use principles.

10. Fair use
• Permits the limited use of original works
without copyright holder’s permission.
• An example would be quoting or citing an
author in a scholarly manuscript.
• The user is responsible for developing
appropriate citations.
• Citing inappropriately or not at all is
plagiarism.

11. Informatics Tools For Collecting Data
and Storage Of Information
• Formal nursing data sets are made up of
gathered information such as healthcare
definitions, classification, and nursing
information.
• Before data can be analyzed or critically
reviewed to determine outcomes or
assessment, it must be collected and
aggregated

12. Data Collection
• Quantitative data collection tools or instruments
include questionnaires, interviews, surveys, quizzes,
assessments, e-mail interviews, and Web-based
surveys
• Nurses may generate and record data from their own
observations or with the assistance of various devices.
Free text (informational data, such as drug dosages
administered, resources used, problems diagnosed) is
recorded electronically.
• Software has been designed to collect, sort, organize,
store, retrieve, select, and aggregate data

13. Internet Data Collection
• protect the privacy of participants by de-identifying
data collected for research
• provide secure transmission and storage of private
information
• mine rich qualitative data on public and freely available
patient support sites and blogs
• issues associated with internet based data collection
are whether or not the participant is who he or she
actually says they are and whether they actually have
the variable of interest, or are pretending to be
someone or something they are not

14. Types of nursing and health data
• resource data (e.g., financial information);
• patient and client demographics;
• activity data (clinical data); and
• health service provider data.

15. Processing Data and Data Analysis
Data analysis is the process by which data
collected during the course of a study is
processed to identify trends and patterns of
relationships

16. Quantitative Data Analysis
• Quantitative data focuses on numbers and
frequencies rather than experience and meaning
• Goal of describing a situation or looking for more
robust relationships such as correlations and
specific variable contributions to an outcome
• may allow the researcher to make inferences to a
population beyond the sample, as long as the
sample was representative of the population

17. Qualitative Data Analysis
• qualitative data can include nearly any
information that can be captured and is not
numerical
• major types of qualitative data include in-depth
interviews, direct observation, and written
documents
• A central issue to the generation and analysis of
free text data is the lack of a generally accepted
set of terminology to capture nursing data.

18. Cohort Research
• two groups of people are identified, one with
an exposure of interest and another without
the exposure.
• groups are followed forward to determine if
the outcome of interest occurs.
• groups are defined based on whether or not
they have had an exposure to a particular risk
factor.

19. Case Control Research
• Researcher identifies patients who have an
outcome of interest and patients who do not
have the outcome
• Researcher looks back in time (typically using
health records) to determine exposures and
experiences that could have contributed to
the outcome occurring or not occurring
• Data mining of EHRs are typical in this
research

20. Summary
Information literacy and informatics tools are
used as a critical skill set for increasing
healthcare efficiency, effectiveness, and safety
in the 21st century.

21. Thought Provoking Questions
• How will the advent of information literacy affect
nursing informatics in the 21st century?
• Reflect on copyright law and why it is needed. If
you determine that photographs or other images
are able to be replicated based on your
assessment of “fair use,” but your administrative
assistant refuses to photocopy them since he
feels that it is copyright infringement and against
company policy, describe in detail how would you
handle this situation.