Statistics in nursing
Typically, the incorporation of statistics in nursing is crucial because it ensures that the care delivered is patient-centred and holistic. Evidence-based statistics has an extraordinary impact on subsequent or present advancements in the clinical setting which indirectly or directly improve patient outcome or safety. Nursing students normally have differing attitudes towards statistics, for instance, the students who were not exposed to research tends to have a negative attitude and feeling towards statistics. Research has revealed that the majority of the nursing students are experiencing some difficulty in comprehending some statistical concepts, especially in statistical computations. Evaluating nursing students’ perspective on their attitude towards statistics is crucial because it promotes favorable attitudes in the nursing field.
In expressing my opinion for the experience I have on the kind of statistical method used to conduct “Nursing student attitude towards statistics” research, I would say that inferential statistics method has been used to conduct the research. Inferential statistics normally concludes the statistical analysis that has been performed on descriptive statistics or data that have been subjected to random variation such as observation or sampling. From the research, only a sample of 175 students was chosen to represent the entire population.
Also, the other aspect that makes the research “Nursing student attitude towards statistics” an inferential statistic is the fact that the parameter being tested is the attitude of the nursing students towards statistics. Attitude cannot be represented using descriptive statistical methods because, in descriptive methods, data from a sample is summarized using indexes such as standard deviation, mean or median.
Indeed, statistics plays a vital role in ensuring that nursing students develop a positive attitude and also develop critical thinking skills which are vital for providing quality and optimum patients centred care.