Purpose: Comment the Discussion (Class 504 Unit 6 Comment 1

To Comment

The patient said...

There are many ways that nurses and researchers can obtain information and data. Quantitative and qualitative data both have their strengths and weaknesses.

Qualitative data is data that isn't represented in a numerical sense and may take more exploration and interpretation to understand (Melnyk, & Fineout-Overholt, 2015). For example, when looking at my PICOT question the issues of joint replacements, dressing types and infection rates come to mind. This leads to other foreground questions that can simply not be answered with numerical data.

For example, one patient with a surgical wound that needed dressing changes stated that he did not change his dressing as ordered because he was the sole caregiver for his young children (Hunt, 2016). He stated that their care came first to him, and he also did not want to change the dressing in front of them for fear of scaring the small children.

The research that discovered this interviewed 10 patients that had to have a surgical revision of their surgical wounds due to infection. In this case, just gathering numerical data from these patients never would have revealed the reason why this man had issues with his dressing change.

Another qualitative study looked at the timing of feedback from primary care providers and the interaction and engagement by the patients.

This study showed that patients that had a therapeutic relationship with their providers that included effective communication and timely feedback were successful patient-provider relationships (Carter et al., 2016).

The patients in this study were interviewed and recorded, and different communication techniques were used by different care providers. The interactions were then analyzed and compared to one another.

Again, this study did not rely on numerical data to gain information that was useful. Qualitative data is just as important if not more important to the science of health care and nursing. I believe that if you give the patients a chance to express themselves in their own words you can gain so much more than numbers could tell.

Carter, M., Davey, A., Wright, C., Elmore, N., Newbould, J., Roland, M., & ... Burt, J. (2016). Capturing patient experience: a qualitative study of implementing real-time feedback in primary care. British Journal Of General Practice, 66(652), e786-e793. doi:10.3399/bjgp16X687085

Hunt, S. D. (2016). Self-care and postoperative dressing management. British Journal Of Nursing, 25(15), S34-S41.
Melnyk, B.M. and Fineout-Overholt, E. (2015). Evidence Based Practice in Nursing &

Thing to Remember:
• Answer this discussion with opinions/ideas creatively and clearly. Supports post using several outside, peer-reviewed sources.
• 1 References, find resources that are 5 years or less
• No errors with APA format 6 Edition