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A descriptive study of effect‐size reporting in research reviews
Author(s) -
Floyd Judith A.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of advanced nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.948
H-Index - 155
eISSN - 1365-2648
pISSN - 0309-2402
DOI - 10.1111/jan.13234
Subject(s) - sample size determination , critical appraisal , cinahl , descriptive statistics , research design , medline , medical education , medicine , psychology , computer science , nursing , alternative medicine , statistics , psychological intervention , mathematics , pathology , political science , law
Aim To describe effect‐size reporting in research reviews completed in support of evidence‐based practice in nursing. Background Many research reviews report nurses’ critical appraisal of level, quality and overall strength of evidence available to address clinical questions. Several studies of research‐review quality suggest effect‐size information would be useful to include in these reviews, but none focused on reviewers’ attention to effect sizes. Design Descriptive. Methods One hundred and four reviews indexed in CINAHL as systematic reviews and published from July 2012–February 2014 were examined. Papers were required to be peer‐reviewed, written in English, contain an abstract and have at least one nurse author. Reviews were excluded if they did not use critical appraisal methods to address evidence of correlation, prediction or effectiveness. Data from remaining papers ( N = 73) were extracted by three or more independent coders using a structured coding form and detailed codebook. Data were stored, viewed and analysed using Microsoft Office Excel ® spreadsheet functions. Results Sixteen percent ( n = 12) of the sample contained effect‐size information. Of the 12, six included all the effect‐size information recommended by APA guidelines. Independent of completeness of reporting, seven contained discussion of effect sizes in the paper, but none included effect‐size information in abstracts. Conclusion Research reviews available to practicing nurses often fail to include information needed to accurately assess how much improvement may result from implementation of evidence‐based policies, programs, protocols or practices. Manuscript reviewers are urged to hold authors to APA standards for reporting/discussing effect‐size information in both primary research reports and research reviews.