Nursing intervention studies: a descriptive analysis of issues important to clinicians

Area of Science:

• Nursing Research
• Clinical Study Design

Background:

• Clinicians require comprehensive data on intervention effectiveness, target populations, magnitude of benefit, and adverse outcomes.
• Research literature provides recommendations for conducting and reporting intervention studies to meet these clinical needs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the frequency of using recommended methods in reporting nursing intervention studies.
• To identify gaps in the reporting of intervention effectiveness, subgroup analysis, magnitude, and adverse outcomes in nursing research.

Main Methods:

• Descriptive study analyzing 84 experimental and quasi-experimental nursing intervention study reports published between 1998 and 2000.
• Data extraction focused on five key research questions related to study design and outcome reporting.

Main Results:

• Only 17% of studies employed designs capable of testing intervention effect variation by individual characteristics, with interaction tests in just 8%.
• Intervention effect magnitude was reported in 38% of studies, primarily using the proportion of individuals achieving a discrete outcome.
• Adverse outcomes were examined in 23% of studies, most frequently as continuous variables.

Conclusions:

• The low adoption of recommended reporting practices suggests a disconnect between researchers and clinicians.
• Further dialogue is needed to ensure nursing intervention studies yield clinically useful knowledge.