Epidemiology is useful in the identification of the origin and cause of diseases as well as the identification of methods to solve these health concerns within the population. Epidemiologists use measures of effect to analyze the associated relationship between risk factors and emergence of disease or ill health. An example of which is the relationship between smoking and heart disease. According to Tripepei et al. (2010), an important goal in clinical and epidemiological research is to observe and monitor the relationship between a risk factor and the outcome as it relates to health.
Measures of effect are indexes that summarizes the strength of the link between exposures and outcomes and can help nursing clinicians in decision making in clinical practice. A typical example is in determining the relationship between patient fall score risk and the chances of falling while on hospital admission. Nurses are responsible for scoring patient’s fall risk using the morse fall scale. According to Van Rensburg et al. (2020), scoring patients using the morse fall scale and finding out risks factors that predisposes fall among patients, good strategic fall prevention plan (such as utilization of bed alarms) and prompt interventions will go a long way in ultimately preventing falls among hospitalized patients. Another example is the relationship between dietary pattern and obesity. An electronic literature search was conducted in PubMed and Web of science to identify the afore mentioned relationship. Result findings showed an inverse association between a prudent/ healthy dietary pattern and overweight/ obesity and a positive association between a western/ unhealthy dietary pattern and overweight/ obesity risk (Min et al., 2017).
Measure of effects are important in nursing practice because it is significant for clinical implementations as well as formulation and implementation of primary prevention strategies related to disease outcomes and prevention. If measures of effects are not implemented, it can delay care which can be detrimental to health outcome
Min, M. U., Li-Fa, X. U., Dong, H. U., Jing, W. U., & Ming-Jie, B. A. I. (2017). Dietary patterns
and overweight/obesity: a review article. Iranian Journal of Public Health, 46(7), 869. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5563867/
Tripepi, G., Jager, K. J., Dekker, F. W., & Zoccali, C. (2010). Mea
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