Measurement in Nursing and Health Research

This book delivers everything nurses and other health researchers need to know about designing, testing, selecting, and evaluating instruments and methods for measurement in nursing. It features the most current content, strategies, and procedures available with direct applicability to nurses and health researchers engaging in interprofessional research, collaboration, education, and evidence-based practice. Chapters focus on challenges in using big data, evaluation, and measurement in interpersonal practice and education; metrics and benchmarking in health education and practice; and measurement issues in translational science. The book gives particular attention to measurement issues resulting from changes in nursing, health research, and the increased emphasis on and undertaking of interprofessional research and evaluation. Presenting the material in step-by-step format, the book is designed for readers with little or no experience in measurement, statistics, or interprofessional issues. It focuses on increasing the reader’s ability to use measures that are operationalized within the context of theories and conceptual frameworks, derived from sound measurement principles and practices and adequately tested for reliability and validity. Additionally, the text provides a pragmatic account of the processes involved in several aspects of measurement such as content analysis, interviews, and questionnaires. In nursing and health research, the Delphi technique is used for obtaining judgments from an expert panel about an issue of concern that is designed to structure group opinion and discussion. Visual analog scale (VAS) can be used even in high-stress, high-volume clinical settings, such as emergency departments.