NR 505 Week 6 Discussion – Collaboration Café

Statistical significance for research studies is quite controversial and has, at times, not been recommended to even be considered in research studies because they are considered to be too mechanical in nature and remove the importance of critical thinking in the study (Schneider, 2013). Nevertheless, statistical significance can be beneficial when used along with clinical significance since statistical significance tells whether there is a difference between the group means and that it is not due to chance that it actually has meaning (Chamberlain, 2017). Clinical significance means that the difference between the means can actually be used in clinical practice and that it is usable and practical (Chamberlain, 2017).

I do believe that it would be possible to have a null hypothesis accepted while demonstrating clinical significance. For instance, if a study were to show that cleaning a venipuncture site with Chlorhexidine for thirty seconds and allowing it to dry thoroughly before the puncture was actually not more effective in decreasing the risk of contaminated samples but then continued practice of it continued to show that there were less contaminated blood culture samples, then we could consider the possibility that the conclusion of accepting the null hypothesis (thirty-second scrub and dry does not lead to less contamination) might very well be due to errors in the sampling.

NR 505 Week 6 Discussion – Collaboration Café

Regarding whether or not a study has clinical significance to clinical practice, I think it would be difficult to determine if there was clinical significance. If you do not believe that the study is true and credible, then it will be very difficult to put into practice. After some time, one might be able to prove through experience that it truly does have clinical significance, but this could take time and finances that might just not be there. For example, if I were to question the results that scrubbing for thirty seconds and allowing it to dry for thirty seconds actually did lower contamination rates, I could possibly say that after some time, it did have clinical significance after doing it for a while and finding that those results actually were true.

References

Chamberlain College of Nursing. (2017). NR505 Week 6: Consider the evidence: What does it mean, and is it useful? [Online lesson]. Downers Grove, IL: Pearson Education Group.

Schneider, J.W. (2013). Caveats for using statistical significance tests in research assignments. Journal of Informatics, 7(1), 50-62.

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NR 505 Week 6 Discussion – Collaboration Café

Distinguish between statistical and clinical significance of results. Would it be possible to have research study results that supported the acceptance of the null hypothesis and demonstrate clinical significance? Provide a hypothetical example that supports your answer. If you question the credibility of the results from a qualitative study, would the information have clinical significance for your practice area? Why or why not? Provide a hypothetical example that supports your answer.