S0012 [Source: Hamric & Blackhall (2007). Critical Care Medicine.]
A study was conducted on 29 physicians and 196 registered nurses (RNs) in Virginia to explore their perspectives on caring for dying patients in intensive care units. Particular attention was made to the relationships among moral distress, ethical climate, physician/nurse collaboration, and satisfaction with quality of care, which were all measured on a quantitative scale.
RNs reported lower collaboration (p < 0.001), higher moral distress (p < 0.001), a more negative ethical environment (p < 0.001), and less satisfaction with quality of care (p = 0.005) than attending physicians did.
Questions:
Q1. What significance test might have been used for comparing the collaboration level between RNs and physicians?
Q2. Have you made any assumptions for your choice in Q1? If yes, list them all.
Q3. The "p" in the report corresponds to p-value. What does a p-value mean?
Q4. It was stated that RNs had a higher moral distress than attending physicians. What information do they need to report for us to determine how much higher it was?
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