Nurses' Knowledge of Inadvertent Hypothermia - Essay Example

"Nurses' Knowledge of Inadvertent Hypothermia" is a worthy example of a paper on care.
This study focused on assessing the knowledge of nurses about inadvertent hypothermia. Several variables were used in this study including demographic variables, nurses’ knowledge (focusing on factors influencing hypothermia, sources of hypothermia, techniques for management of hypothermia, complications associated with hypothermia), and risk factors for hypothermia development. Other variables were temperature measurement and risk factors of hypothermia development.

Fact that this quantitative descriptive study did not seek to test hypotheses of any relationships, an outright identification of dependent variable was not clearly stated by the authors. But stemming from the title of the study, it is can be inferred that the dependent variable in the study was hypothermia development. This is the variable that the researchers were interested in finding out whether the participants (nurses) had knowledge about.  

From the explanation in the paragraph above, identification of independent variables was also not clearly given by the authors in this research. From the title of this research paper, the independent variables can be inferred to have been the nurses’ knowledge on hypothermia such as the perceived factors that lead to the development of hypothermia, consequences of hypothermia, measurement of hypothermia, and perception of normothermia.

The extraneous variables are those factors that exert an effect on the outcome but are not part of the planned experiment (Hauser, 2008). In this study, the demographic variables presented can be said to be extraneous variables since they were not part of the planned relationships.  

The demographic variables were preoperative experience and level of qualification. Surprisingly, the authors did not bother to include the gender of the participants as part of the demographic variables; something which would have been very useful especially in assessing the gender differences in the knowledge of nurses on hypothermia. 

The study did not include all the necessary variables especially controlling for most of the extraneous factors in the study. The study only controlled for experience and level of qualification yet variables such as age, gender, race/ethnicity, and marital status have been found to correlate with many nursing outcomes (Polit & Bett, 2004). Their inclusion would have given the study much significance though the results cannot be said to be wrong.  

I would include more demographic variables of the sample in order to control for the unintended effects of some extraneous variables confounding the results. Further tests would be done especially chi-square tests to establish the influence of these demographic factors on the development of hypothermia knowledge. These would reveal demographic differences in the nurses’ knowledge.  

In this study, the authors test both antecedents (factors) as well as the consequences (risks) of hypothermia development. I question whether it was actually viable to include both factors and risks associated with hypothermia development instead of focusing on only the factors or the consequences. It, therefore, seems too broad that the authors include so many variables in the study and this could have affected the research focus.