Planning for Data Collection - Term Paper Example

Determination of patient satisfaction Determination of Patient Satisfaction Introduction The success of a health instittuion is dependent on the level of customer satisfaction. In other words, a health insstituion is more likely to maintain its client base when the clientss are satisfied with the servicess offered. This paper covers the questions that can be used for gathering information about customer satisfaction based on the given scenario, as well as offers an explanation of the methods or instruments that can be used to gather data.

An appropriate sample size is described and how the participants would be selected. This paper further provides a rationale for these choices and explains how high standards of reliability and validity ccan be ensured. Research questionss According to Keough and Tanabe (2011), a ressearch question is considered a significant footstep in conducting methodical investigationss. It is important to keep in mind the fact that any questions used to gather information in refrence to the scenario ought to be quantifiable, include all the variables of the study, and also be comprehensible enough.

The main focus of this study in reference to the scenario is patient satisfaction. The initial questions should therefore cover quantifiable factors such as age, race, gender, and place of residence. Sebsequently, questions to determine the patients experience can be asked. The following are examples of questions that can be asked to gauge the level of patient satisfaction:Did you find any difficulties when accessing this health instituion?Did you have to wait for long queing to receive treatment?

If yes, do you think the wait time was fair?Are the hospital staff friendly?Would you reccommend this hospital to others? Are you generally satisfied with the services in our instituion?Method or instrument to gather data In such a scenaio, face to face interviews would be the most relevant method to collect data regarding patient satsfaction. It is evident from past studies that face to face interviews lets or permits the researcher to have a personal association with the patient hence s/he is more likely to get first class and higgh quality information.

This can be made easier by constructing a questionnaire to ease the whole process (Keough and Tanabe, 2011). Sample size and how to select the participants As postulated by Keough and Tanabe (2011), to determine sample size, conducting a power analysis is vital. In reference to the scenario, the health instituion serves 10,000 patients annually. To have a distributed sample size, it would be importnt to for instance divide the annual turnover of patients by twelve in order to determine the proportion of patients visiting the instituion per month.

Through the employment of an easy and unsystematic sampling tool, the equivalent fractions of patients to use as the sample monthly and subsequently annually can be determined. The participants will be selected through random sampling. For example, by the use of a sample size calculator, for an error of plus or minus 5%, an approprate sample size would be 385 patients. Ensuring high standard reliability and validity The quality of data determines its validity and reliability. To ensure the validity of the research, th questionnaire ought to be designed in a way that measures all the variables used in the study.

This means that the questionnaire must be able to meet its intended purpose or objective. Reliability denotes the fact that the investigators ought to get the same or similar resuts even after repeating the study several times. This is ensured through the incorporation of the appropriate data collection tools or instruments. These would ensure that the data collected is as accurate as possible (Keough and Tanabe, 2011). In a nutshell, a researched ought to be careful on how s/he selects the research questions as the quality of data collected determines the validity and reliability of the research conducted.

ReferenceKeough, V. A., & Tanabe, P. (2011). Survey Research: An Effective Design for Conducting Nurssing Research. Chicago, IL: National Council of State Boards of Nursing, Inc.