Nursing Research: Comparative vs Descriptive Design

[nursingstudent38]

I am currently taking an Intro to Nursing Research class. We were given an article and had to determine whether the article is a Comparative Descriptive Design article or (typical) Descriptive Design article. I have figured out most of the questions needed to determine the design type; but I am stuck on one last question!

Is the article researching ONE GROUP or MULTIPLE GROUPS?

The following is an excerpt from the article entitled: "Comparison of Oral and Tympanic Temperatures in Adult Surgical Patients"

"Design and Sample

A repeated-measures design was used to determine the reproducibility of tympanic and oral temperature measurements. The study was conducted on three surgical units at a tertiary-care center.

Temperatures (oral and tympanic) were obtained on a sample of 257 adult surgical patients based on the standard vital sign times of the units involved."

Thanks for your time!

Gilbert, M., Barton, A., & Counsell, C. (2002). Comparison of tympanic and oral temperatures in surgical patients. Applied Nursing Research, 15(1), 2002. Retrieved from CINAHL Plus with Full Text database.

[llg, PhD, RN]

So ... it was 1 group of patients and each patient had their temperature taken 2 ways?

[RNTutor, BSN, RN]

Sounds like 1 group to me. The other clue is "repeated measures" design. A repeated measures design will take the same person and change a variable for that particular person (in this case, how the temp was taken). So the data is being compared "within" each person, so to speak.

If it was a multiple group study, then you would have had one group of people have their temp taken orally, and a different group of people have their temp taken tympanically