STA 630 Assignment#2

Research Methods (STA 630)

Assignment No. 02

Patients’ attitude

An NGO working for the welfare of the cancer patients wants to conduct a survey to measure cancer patients’ attitude toward the doctor’s personality, behavior, competence, and prescribed treatment, in the public hospitals of Lahore. A researcher has been hired for this purpose. There are 10 hospitals in the city which are treating the cancer patients. Administrations of
seven famous hospitals in the city are ready to cooperate with researcher and provide him the information about cancer patients admitted in the hospital. While the other three hospitals refused to provide any information for some reasons. On the basis of the information provided by 07 hospitals, he has a list of 500 cancer patients, admitted in these public hospitals of
Lahore.
The researcher decided to take a simple random sample of 150 patients for the survey. He collected data by filling out a questionnaire from selected patients and analyzed the data to draw conclusions.

Questions:
1. Identify the population in the given scenario? (5 Marks) (Ref: In other words, the totality out of which sample is drawn is referred to as population.Pg-87)
The population is 500 Patients in 7 hospitals as known.
2. What is the Sampling Frame in the given Scenario? (5 Marks) (Ref: Sample Frame A sample frame is a list that includes every member of the population from which a sample is to be taken. Without some form of sample frame, a random sample of a population, other than an extremely small population, is impossible. See)
The sample frame if the population of cancer patients in 7 hospitals and total list is of 500 such patients.

3. Identify the Sampling unit and Observation unit in the given scenario? (5 Marks)
(Ref: Sampling unit: This is that element or set of elements considered for selection in some stage of sampling (same as the elements, in a simple single-stage sample). In a multi-stage sample, the sampling unit could be blocks, households, and individuals within the households.
Observation Unit: (1) The Unit of observation is the unit on which one collects data (data on neighborhoods of people using the U.S. Census, on individuals using surveys, etc.). For example, a study may have a unit of observation at the individual level but may have the unit of analysis at the neighborhood level, drawing conclusions on neighborhood characteristics from data collected from individuals. (2) Definition: Observation units are those entities on which information is received and statistics are compiled.
(3) Clinical Observation Units. Clinical observation units have emerged as a viable solution to pressing problems facing U.S. hospitals: capacity constraints in the emergency department, lack of inpatient beds and the movement toward greater reliance on outpatient services by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and other payers.

Patients initially coming to the ED are admitted to these units for testing and observation for a minimum of eight hours to a maximum of 48 hours. Observation units can be situated throughout the hospital and “virtual” units enable observation care at any available inpatient bed, but they are typically located within or adjacent to the ED.

“The setting is geared toward patients who require more management or attention than can be given in the traditional ED, but do not need the length or level of services provided in the inpatient setting,” says Russell Holman, M.D., senior vice president of Cogent Health care, a national hospitalist firm based in Irvine, Calif.

Sampling Unit.
150 Patients have been taken as the sample for the survey.

Observation Unit.
The sampling unit is the Observation Unit that means 150 patients selected for the purpose.

4. What type of research is this? Descriptive, exploratory or explanatory (5 Marks)
Exploratory Research.
You may be exploring a new topic or issue in order to learn about it. If the issue was new or the researcher has written little on it, you began at the beginning. This is called exploratory research. The researchers' goal is to formulate more precise questions that future research can answer. Exploratory research may be the first stage in a sequence of studies. A researcher may need to know enough to design and execute a second, more systematic and extensive study.
Explanatory Research.
When we encounter an issue that is already known and have a description of it, we might begin to wonder why things are the way they are. The desire to know “why,” to explain, is the purpose of explanatory research. It builds on exploratory and descriptive research and goes on to identify the reasons for something that occurs. Explanatory research looks for causes and reasons. For example, a descriptive research may discover that 10 percent of the parents abuse their children, whereas the explanatory researcher is more interested in learning why parents abuse their children.

With all above I am of the opinion that this is Exploratory Research.