Statistical Challenges in Nursing Education and Research: An Expert Panel Consensus

Consistent Practices in Pressure Injury Prevention at Long-term Care Facilities

OBJECTIVE

To examine the use of consistent practice in pressure injury (PI) prevention based on international guidelines at long-term care facilities in Finland.

METHODS

A correlational cross-sectional design was used. The authors collected data from 84 contact persons within 62 participating long-term care facilities in Finland using the Pressure Ulcer Prevention Practice instrument.

RESULTS

According to the respondents, the PI prevention strategies practiced most often were skin assessment and skin care; nutrition was the prevention used least often. Consistent practices relating to repositioning were most frequently agreed upon, whereas those relating to risk assessment were least frequently agreed upon. Some of the demographic factors of respondents, including knowledge level and reading of PI prevention guidelines and articles, were associated with the frequency of prevention practices.

CONCLUSIONS

Although respondents reported a moderate level of PI prevention based on international guidelines, there were often no consistent practices in the units. Further education about PI prevention might improve the consistent practice of evidence-based PI prevention.

Statistical Reporting in Nursing Research: Addressing a Common Error in Reporting of p Values (p = .000)

PURPOSE

The confidence in a study will be reduced due to the incorrect representation of statistical results. However, it is unknown to what extent p values are incorrectly represented in published nursing journals. The study aims to evaluate the articles in 30 nursing journals in terms of the error in reporting of p values (p = .000).

DESIGN AND METHODS

This was a bibliometric analysis. All papers published in 10 leading nursing journals (between 2015 and 2019), the 10 bottom nursing journals (2019), and 10 selected key nursing journals (2019) indexed in the Science Citation Index Journal Citation Reports were reviewed to detect errors in reporting of p values (p = .000).

RESULTS

A total of 3,788 papers were reviewed. Notably, it was found that 93.3% (28/30) of the nursing journals contained incorrect representation of p values (p = .000). The reporting rate of these journals ranges from 0% to 57.1%, with an overall rate of 12.8% (486/3,788). In addition, the rate of incorrect representation of p values (p = .000) showed no statistically significant difference between different publication years (Χ² = 4.976, p = .290). However, the rate of reporting was different between study types, journals, and regions (p = .007, p = .020, and p < .001, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS

The incorrect representation of p values is common in nursing journals.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE

We recommend that both publishers and researchers be responsible for preventing statistical errors in manuscripts. Furthermore, various kinds of statistical training methods should be adopted to ensure that nurses and journal reviewers have enough statistical literacy.