Paper
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Nursing Research Across Countries: The Factorial Survey Method
Marion E. Wright, PhD, School of Nursing, University of Ulster, Coleraine, United Kingdom, Ruth Ludwick, PhD, RNC, College of Nursing, Kent State University, Kent, OH, USA, Rich Zeller, PhD, College of Nursing, Kent State U, Kent, OH, USA, Dawn W. Dowding, PhD, Department of Health Sciences and Hull York Medical School, The University of York, York, United Kingdom, and William Lauder, PhD, School of Nursing and Health Studies, Central Queensland University, North Rockhampton, Australia.
| Learning Objective #1: Understand the use of factorial surveys in research on nurses' decisions regarding patient nutrition |
| Learning Objective #2: Understand factors which influence the use of factorial surveys across countries |
Objective: The aim was to evaluate the use of the factorial survey method across countries. Design: Using randomly generated vignettes as the essential feature, this study examined nurses’ decisions about nutrition across 3 countries. The strength of the factorial survey is that it is a hybrid technique. It combines the strength of random assignment inherent in the classical experimental design with the generalizability power of the sample survey due to random sampling. Sample: In 2001-2002, 166 RNs and student nurses from Ohio, Northern Ireland and Scotland participated in this study. Concept: To demonstrate applicability across countries an example of research on nutrition will be used. Dependent variables were nurses’ decisions to identity risk of malnutrition, to screen nutritional status and to refer to a dietician. Methods: A two-part survey was used for data collection: vignettes and demographic information. Each respondent rated 6 vignettes on the 3 dependent variables. Multiple regression was used for vignette analysis. The unit of analysis was the vignette, thus 966 vignettes were analyzed. Findings: The 3 prediction models were each found to explain about a quarter of the variance for each of the 3 dependent variables. Findings indicated that subjects across all countries were using an approach to nutritional screening that did not adequately balance information from the four key indicators of nutritional status: dietary, anthropometric, clinical and biochemical. Instead they relied mainly on subjective patient data on food intake over 3 meals. Implications: The study also demonstrated it is possible to carry out cross-cultural research using factorial surveys with relative ease. With only minor adaptations such as spelling the vignettes were readily completed by subjects in 3 countries. Using the factorial survey method, the researchers were able to examine decision-making across countries in the same study, thus precluding the need for separate or follow-up studies.
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Sigma Theta Tau International
July 21, 2004