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Statistics for health professionals
65
BOOK REVIEWS
reflects
the profession’s
changing
vision of nursing
within
the health care delivery system. The Nursing Profarsion: Turning Points is an informative and helpful compendium for practicing professionals and students alike. The future will determine whether it accurately portrays the turning point for the practice of nursing in the 2lst century.
DEAN SHARON E. HOFFMAN, PHD Co/lege of Nursing Medical Uniuwsity of South Carolina Charlestown, SC
Statistics for Health Professionals. By Susan Shott, PhD. Philadelphia, PA, W.B. Saunders Company, 1990, 418 pages. Dr Shott has written a book that has as its purpose the understanding of statistical procedures rather than the memorization of formulas or calculations. The student is expected to choose correct statistical procedures, identify violations of statistical assumptions, and interpret statistical results. The additional objectives of the text are to carry out basic calculations, interpret computer output for commonly used statistical procedures, and to recognize data analysis problems requiring statistical consultation. The contents of the book are organized into 13 chapters including content on: experimental design, descriptive statistics, probability, random variables and distributions, samples, estimation, hypothesis testing, one-way analysis of variance, repeated measures, ANOVA, frequency data, nonparametric statistics, correlations, and regression, and two-way analysis of variance. The appendices include additional information on power, summarizing statistical results for publication, statistical consultation; answers to half of the problems are in Appendix D. Statistical tables for random numbers, 2 score, binomial probabilities, t tests, F tests, and other statistics are included. The book is aimed at diverse health professionals, and therefore, examples from a wide range of literature are included. The author states that graduate students and advanced undergraduate students are the target audience, as well as highly motivated beginning undergraduates with a strong interest in medicine or health care. One drawback would be the lack of inclusion, even at an elementary level of multivariate statistics. In graduate nursing research courses, where the focus is on the use of research findings, an introduction to multivariate statistics would be needed to read articles that use MANOVA, factor analysis, or other multivariate techniques. Although the narrative is easy to read, the material is sometimes scattered throughout several paragraphs. For example, in the chapter on Descriptive Statistics, where measures of central tendency are described, seven paragraphs discuss mean, followed by four paragraphs on median, and five paragraphs on mode. Students may find it more helpful to have an introductory sentence saying there are three measures of central tendency in the beginning of that section, rather than reading through a number of paragraphs to find out that there are three. In the chapter on samples,
only the simple random sample and the stratified sample are discussed, omitting discussion of cluster samples and discounting systematic random sample as a random sample (Warwick & Lininger, 1975). In every chapter, approximately half of the page is devoted to statistical printouts or tables of examples, sometimes making reading the content difficult. Most chapters include a section on pitfalls in the use of those statistics that will be extremely helpful in the critiquing of research reports. The chapters end with a short summary and a number of problems using tables or printouts for the questions. Decision trees are included in chapters and also at the back of the book. Tables are given in the chapters to assist readers in making connections between the null hypothesis being tested, the test statistic actually used (formula), and the distribution of the test statistic inclusive of degrees of freedom. The presentation of computer printouts will assist students to make the transition from the printout to the tabular presentation of data. There is a glossary of terms and a glossary of symbols at the end of the book. In summary, this text book might be especially useful for those students in statistic courses of a multidisciplinary nature. Its adoption in a nursing research course would be tempered by considerations of the congruence between the presentation of research methods in this text and the research being taught in the program, and the multidisciplinary nature of the examples and references when there are text books available with a greater focus on nursing (Muaro, Visintainer, & Page, 1986). The use of two columns per page, with many tables and printout samples crossing the two columns, gives the visual appearance of crowding. The many examples, the use of computer printouts and the summaries at the end of each chapter, and the listing of common pitfalls are all strengths of this textbook.
References Munro, B.H., Visintainer, M.A., & Page, E.B. (1986). Statisticalmethods for beahh care researrh.Philadelphia: Lippincott. Warwick, D.P., & Lininger, CA. (1975). Theory andpractice. New York, McGraw-Hill. KARIN T. KIRCHHOFF, PHD, RN, FAAN ProfRcor College of Nursing Director of Nursing Research Department of Nursing University of Utah Hospital Salt Luke City, UT
The American General Hospital: Communities and Social Contexts. By Diana Elizabeth Long, Janet Golden (eds). Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1989, 217 pages. The announced purpose of this book is to broaden our understanding of the history of the general hospital as an American institution. Comprising 12 chapters, each written by a different author, the book is divided into two major parts. Part I, composed of four essays, focuses on the period from 1870 to 1920; during this time, local hospitals first emerged as community resources and then developed into modern medical institutions. The four essays in Part II
BOOK REVIEWS
reflects
the profession’s
changing
vision of nursing
within
the health care delivery system. The Nursing Profarsion: Turning Points is an informative and helpful compendium for practicing professionals and students alike. The future will determine whether it accurately portrays the turning point for the practice of nursing in the 2lst century.
DEAN SHARON E. HOFFMAN, PHD Co/lege of Nursing Medical Uniuwsity of South Carolina Charlestown, SC
Statistics for Health Professionals. By Susan Shott, PhD. Philadelphia, PA, W.B. Saunders Company, 1990, 418 pages. Dr Shott has written a book that has as its purpose the understanding of statistical procedures rather than the memorization of formulas or calculations. The student is expected to choose correct statistical procedures, identify violations of statistical assumptions, and interpret statistical results. The additional objectives of the text are to carry out basic calculations, interpret computer output for commonly used statistical procedures, and to recognize data analysis problems requiring statistical consultation. The contents of the book are organized into 13 chapters including content on: experimental design, descriptive statistics, probability, random variables and distributions, samples, estimation, hypothesis testing, one-way analysis of variance, repeated measures, ANOVA, frequency data, nonparametric statistics, correlations, and regression, and two-way analysis of variance. The appendices include additional information on power, summarizing statistical results for publication, statistical consultation; answers to half of the problems are in Appendix D. Statistical tables for random numbers, 2 score, binomial probabilities, t tests, F tests, and other statistics are included. The book is aimed at diverse health professionals, and therefore, examples from a wide range of literature are included. The author states that graduate students and advanced undergraduate students are the target audience, as well as highly motivated beginning undergraduates with a strong interest in medicine or health care. One drawback would be the lack of inclusion, even at an elementary level of multivariate statistics. In graduate nursing research courses, where the focus is on the use of research findings, an introduction to multivariate statistics would be needed to read articles that use MANOVA, factor analysis, or other multivariate techniques. Although the narrative is easy to read, the material is sometimes scattered throughout several paragraphs. For example, in the chapter on Descriptive Statistics, where measures of central tendency are described, seven paragraphs discuss mean, followed by four paragraphs on median, and five paragraphs on mode. Students may find it more helpful to have an introductory sentence saying there are three measures of central tendency in the beginning of that section, rather than reading through a number of paragraphs to find out that there are three. In the chapter on samples,
only the simple random sample and the stratified sample are discussed, omitting discussion of cluster samples and discounting systematic random sample as a random sample (Warwick & Lininger, 1975). In every chapter, approximately half of the page is devoted to statistical printouts or tables of examples, sometimes making reading the content difficult. Most chapters include a section on pitfalls in the use of those statistics that will be extremely helpful in the critiquing of research reports. The chapters end with a short summary and a number of problems using tables or printouts for the questions. Decision trees are included in chapters and also at the back of the book. Tables are given in the chapters to assist readers in making connections between the null hypothesis being tested, the test statistic actually used (formula), and the distribution of the test statistic inclusive of degrees of freedom. The presentation of computer printouts will assist students to make the transition from the printout to the tabular presentation of data. There is a glossary of terms and a glossary of symbols at the end of the book. In summary, this text book might be especially useful for those students in statistic courses of a multidisciplinary nature. Its adoption in a nursing research course would be tempered by considerations of the congruence between the presentation of research methods in this text and the research being taught in the program, and the multidisciplinary nature of the examples and references when there are text books available with a greater focus on nursing (Muaro, Visintainer, & Page, 1986). The use of two columns per page, with many tables and printout samples crossing the two columns, gives the visual appearance of crowding. The many examples, the use of computer printouts and the summaries at the end of each chapter, and the listing of common pitfalls are all strengths of this textbook.
References Munro, B.H., Visintainer, M.A., & Page, E.B. (1986). Statisticalmethods for beahh care researrh.Philadelphia: Lippincott. Warwick, D.P., & Lininger, CA. (1975). Theory andpractice. New York, McGraw-Hill. KARIN T. KIRCHHOFF, PHD, RN, FAAN ProfRcor College of Nursing Director of Nursing Research Department of Nursing University of Utah Hospital Salt Luke City, UT
The American General Hospital: Communities and Social Contexts. By Diana Elizabeth Long, Janet Golden (eds). Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1989, 217 pages. The announced purpose of this book is to broaden our understanding of the history of the general hospital as an American institution. Comprising 12 chapters, each written by a different author, the book is divided into two major parts. Part I, composed of four essays, focuses on the period from 1870 to 1920; during this time, local hospitals first emerged as community resources and then developed into modern medical institutions. The four essays in Part II