As the QI Director of General Hospital, you are assisting the Department of Nurs
ID: 3297303 • Letter: A
Question
As the QI Director of General Hospital, you are assisting the Department of Nursing with a Pain Assess- ment Study. Review the established pain classification system in Table 3-12 and respond to the questions presented.
1. What type of data does the table represent?
2. Explain why these data differ from other categorical data and why the data are appropriate to use with this Pain Assessment Study.
Table 3-12 Pain Assessment StudyAll Rights Reserved.
Pain Level Scale
Documented Pain Level Range Pain Description
01–02 None or Occasional
03–04 Little or Minimal
05–06 Moderate
07–08 Heavy
09–10 Severe
Explanation / Answer
1. The type of data in the table represent Interval Variables.
2. A categorical variable is one that has two or more categories, but there is no intrinsic ordering to the categories and no numeric value associated with all categories. For example, gender is a categorical variable having two categories (male and female) and there is no intrinsic ordering to the categories.
An ordinal variable is similar to a categorical variable but have clear ordering of the variables. For example, suppose you have a variable, economic status, with three categories (low, medium and high). In addition to being able to classify people into these three categories, you can order the categories as low, medium and high.
An interval variable is similar to an ordinal variable, except that the intervals between the values of the interval variable are equally spaced. For example, suppose you have a variable such as annual income that is measured in dollars, the variable can be divide into categories with a clear order and a numeric range.
In the given example, the pain level scale have 5 categories - None or Occasional, Little or Minimal, Moderate, Heavy and Severe, with a clear order and each category is associated with a numeric range 01-02, 03-04, 05-06, 07-08, 09-10. So, pain level scale is an interval variable.
Interval variables are used when, we need to use it as a categorical variable as well as we need the order of the variable for the stastical analysis. Interval scales are nice when we need to measure central tendency parameters by mode, median, or mean and standard deviation. In a pain assessment study, we may require to calculate the central tendency parameters as well as classify different patients/subjects into different categories of pain level range. So, interval data are appropriate to use with this Pain Assessment Study.
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