How Long Before Being Infected, Essay Example

Research Question/Design Discussion

Research Question: What is the relationship between extended inpatient stays for nursing home debilitated patients in the hospital and nosocomial infection, MRSA, in Los Angeles, California?

Description of study design (correlational)

Quantitative design was chosen to answer this research question. The specific application is correlational. This type of design tries to find out the extent to which a relationship exists between two or more variables applying statistical analysis. Variables in this research question includeextended inpatient stays;nursing home debilitated patients in the hospital;nosocomial infection;MRSA andLos Angeles, California (Creswell, 2009)

It is the researcher’s desire to interpret data retrieved after statistical inferences are made. As such, it is possible to determine trends as well as patterns indicative of certain causal relationships among variables. However, correlational study designs do not prove any of these causal relationships, but simply identify them based from data analysis. Data relationships are the concerns of correlational study designs. Hence, its usefulness in providing answers to this research question,what is the relationship between extended inpatient stays for nursing home debilitated patients in the hospital and nosocomial infection, MRSA, in Los Angeles, California? (Creswell, 2008).

Rationale for using this research model lies in the fact that by selecting a qualitative approach incorporating correlational design facilitates establishing the desired relationship between/among variables identified in the study. Clearly, the research requires that the extent to which extended inpatient stays for nursing home debilitated patients is related to nosocomial infections specifically MRSA be identified. The most appropriate methodology within research science for this particular question is quantitative/correlational. Matured researchers have advanced that the research questions often determines the type of study design which must be employed (Gauch,  2003).

References

Creswell, J. W. (2008). Educational Research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River: Pearson.

Creswell, J. W (2009). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Gauch,  H. (2003). Scientific method in practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press