Explain whether you would select a qualitative or quantitative design to collect data and evaluate the effectiveness of your evidence-based practice project proposal. Identify which data collection tool you would specifically use and explain why this design is best for your evidence-based practice project proposal. Example Topic 4 DQ 1 Response

The nursing practice of interest is medication errors, and the evidence-based intervention selected is Barcode Medication errors. Prevalence and burden data are quantitative and are based on the number of medication errors. Any research study’s objectives and research questions influence the design because studies attempt to answer study questions and meet the research objectives.

The study’s objectives can only be studied using statistical means by evaluating data from the hospital database. The prevalence of medication administration errors compared to other medication errors and the changes in these errors will be vital in determining the effectiveness of BCMA (Williams et al., 2021). The data will thus require statistical evaluation, hence the need for a quantitative research design.

Bloomfield and Fisher (2019) state that a correlational quantitative research design is best suited to determine the relationship between variables and is thus best suited for this study. Data collected for this project will include medical records on medication errors in the facility and the collection of raw data (medication errors, including near misses and sentinel events) related to medication administration collected throughout the project. For this project, a quantitative design will be the most suitable to help collect data and evaluate the proposed project’s effectiveness. Data for this project will be quantitative hence the design’s selection.

Document review/secondary data collection methods and surveys utilizing quantitative research designs will collect and analyze data for the project. Document reviews utilizing healthcare records help professionals avoid time and resources wasted in data collection because the data is readily available (Melnyk & Fineout-Overholt, 2022). Data from the healthcare database on medication errors is the best to use in this quasi-experimental study and results in medication administration error differences pre-an post implementation of barcode medication administration technologies. Selecting the right research design will help with objective achievement through adequate planning.

References

Bloomfield, J., & Fisher, M. J. (2019). Quantitative research design. Journal of the Australasian Rehabilitation Nurses Association, 22(2), 27-30. http://dx.doi.org/10.3316/informit.738299924514584