Statistical analysis of the nursing minimum data set for The Netherlands.

Abstract

The purpose of this overview is to examine and illustrate the feasible options for the statistical analysis of nursing minimum data sets (NMDSs). After explaining the need for these data collections, examples from different countries are discussed and examples of the methods used for statistical analysis are summarized. Distinct purposes for information uses and for the presentation of information requires different approaches for data collection and statistical analysis. The feasible options for the nursing minimum data set for the Netherlands (NMDSN) have been described to illustrate the different methods available. Six studies are discussed, illustrating their goals, data collection methods, data analysis, and results. These studies include visualizing nursing care by means of frequencies of nursing diagnoses and interventions, RIDIT (relative to an identified distribution) analysis, fingerprints, and graphs from multidimensional scaling techniques. In addition, using data sets for workload measurement and testing of instruments is presented. The overview ends with general recommendations for data collection and analysis of NMDSs.