The ability of nursing to conduct effectiveness research has been hindered by the lack of valid and reliable data involving patient/ client outcomes of nursing care. The Nursing Outcomes Classification (NOC) provides outcomes to conduct effectiveness research. This study is a secondary analysis of 6 outcomes from the original study conducted by the NOC research team. The six outcomes included in this study were Self-Care: Activities of Daily Living, Mobility Level, Ambulation, Pain Level, Pain Control, and Comfort Level. The study used descriptive statistics, intra-class correlation, and regression techniques to analyze the data. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the characteristics of patients, and nurses who rated outcomes. Intra-class correlations (ICCs) were used to analyze inter-rater reliability (IRR) of NOC outcomes. Regression methods were used to identify the relationships of factors influencing the selected NOC outcomes. The poster will highlight significant findings from this study such as 1) The ICC coefficients of the NOC outcomes rated by nurses by setting were 0.7525 in community health, 0.9364 hospitals, and 0.6186 nursing home; 2) The ICCs of nursing education of paired nurse raters were from 0.78 to 0.92 and reflect the strong inter-rater reliability. The ICCs of years of nursing experiences ranged 0.82 to 0.90. This suggests that the inter-rater reliability for the six NOC outcomes by years of nursing experiences of nurse raters is not different; 3) Four out of six patient variables- age, patient education, patient occupation, and medical diagnoses had a significant relationship with change. Older patients had less improvement in outcomes than younger patients; 4) A statistically significant relationship between nursing education and years of nursing experience, and change in outcome score was found. The finding of NOC study is used for evaluation patient outcome and effectiveness research.
Session #1223 - Graduate Student Poster Session
The 29th Annual MNRS Research Conference (April 1-4, 2005)