Statistical power
The ability of a study to demonstrate an association or causal relationship between two variables (if an association exists) means that the study is statistically significant. The statistical power of a study is primarily related to the number of people included. If too few people are included, any differences in the outcomes will not be statistically significant.
Structure Measure
measures of organizational characteristics (such as staffing ratios, number of hospital beds)” Or “Denotes attributes of the setting in which care occurs
Donabedian (1997)
Systematic review
The application of strategies that limit bias in the assembly, critical appraisal and synthesis of all relevant studies on a specific topic. Systematic reviews focus on peer-reviewed publications about a specific health problem and use rigorous, standardised methods for selecting and assessing articles. A systematic review differs from a meta-analysis in not including a quantitative summary of the results.
The British Nursing Index (BNI)
The BNI (British Nursing Index) is a bibliographic database that indexes articles from the most popular English language nursing journals published primarily in the UK. BNI is a comprehensive index covering all aspects of nursing, midwifery and community healthcare. Covers the years from 1992 to the present and is updated monthly
Treatment benefits
Positive patient-relevant outcome associated with an intervention, quantifiable by epidemiological measures such as absolute risk reduction (ARR) and number needed to treat (NNT).
TRIP Database
The TRIP Database is a medical search engine with emphasis on evidence-based medicine (EBM) and clinical guidelines and queries, including content from Cochrane and Bandolier. Designed to find and use high-quality clinical research evidence from medical literature for clinical practice. Sign-up to Trip to save searches, get tailored results sent to you, and to see what articles are available in NBT libraries or with an NBT online access.
Validity
The extent to which a variable or intervention measures what it is supposed to measure, or accomplishes what it is supposed to accomplish. The internal validity of a study refers to the integrity of the experimental design. The external validity of a study refers to the appropriateness by which its results can be applied to non-study patients or populations.
Variable
Observable, measurable (or categorisable) characteristics that vary among cases in a study e.g. height, weight, blood pressure, gender, eye colour and length of hospital stay.
In an experiment, the independent variable is the variable that is varied or manipulated by the researcher, and the dependent variable is the response that is measured. An independent variable is the presumed cause, whereas the dependent variable is the presumed effect.
WEAHSN
The West of England Academic Health Science Network (WEASHN) is a diverse network of NHS care providers in universities, industry and commissioning concerned with innovative, evidence-based practice to improve health and care quality.
York CRD (Centre for Reviews and Dissemination)
The York University Centre for Reviews and Dissemination databases provide access to systematic reviews, economic evaluations, summaries of completed and on-going health technology assessments (HTAs) and summaries of all Cochrane reviews.