Need help for research class

[~patty~]

Hi,

I am taking a research class and I need to figure out what type of study I am doing. I want to do a study on the use of restraints in the elderly, and if restraints reduce the incidince if falls. So what type of study is this? I know it will be quantitative, but I don't know if it is experimental, quasi-experimental, descriptive/survey, longitudinal, cross-sectional, retrospective? Can anyone help?

Thanks!

[Student_nurse_SMC13]

This is experimental because you would have 2 groups, one with and one without restraints and you are testing the effect of the restraints on falls. remember though that this is also correlative because there are other factors involved for risk of falls that are not related to the restraints.

[Double-Helix, BSN, RN]

It depends on how you are going to do the study.

Are you going to have a randomly selected group of elderly patients and randomly divide them into control (non-restraint) and experiemental (restraint) and then monitor falls in each group and compare the data? This would be an experiemental study.

Or are you going to look back at charts or restraint data and see how often falls were reported in elderly people who were restrained and compare that to the rest of the hospital's falls? This would be retrospective.

Determine how you want to set up your study and then you can decide what kind of research you are doing.

[llg, PhD, RN]

As Ashley said ... it depends how you design your study.

The topic is not the key element that indicates what type of study it is. You can choose to do almost any type of study about most topics. For example, you can choose to design an experimental study of patient falls ... or you can choose to design a descriptive study about patient falls ... or you could choose to do a qualitative study about patient falls ...etc. etc. etc. The choice is yours.

I suggest you look at your textbook -- the section that describes the different types of research designs. As you read about each type, ask yourself, "If I were to do this type of study about patient falls, what would it be like?" As you go down the list of types, you'll see how there are many different studies that could be designed about that topic.

After you have considered the many different types of studies that could be designed about patient falls ... pick the one that would best suit your needs ... best answer your research question ... best meet the needs of your course assignment ... etc. -- whatever best meets your need.

If you follow the instructions I just gave, you'll learn an important lesson about research.

Good luck!

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

:yeah:wish i could give more than one kudos (yes, that's a singular noun, just as it is) for that. read up on what those study types mean and then you'll be in a much better place to read and conduct research!