The book “Understanding Nursing Research: Building an Evidence-Based Practice” focuses on the use of quasi-experimentation and experimental qualitative research (Burns & Grove, 2010). The sampling methods used in the book are random, systematic, and stratified sampling. This paper will focus on the use of these sampling methods in the research “The effects of nursing interventions to enhance mental health and quality of life among individuals with heart failure” to investigate the relationship between heart failure and the most affected age (Britton, Scott, Settle-Kline, 2004).
The research was conducted using people between the age of 20 and 100 years with a target sample of 100 people from a large population. In random sampling, the selection was done at random with every person in the population having an equal chance of being selected in the 100 people sample (Burns & Grove, 2010). In systematic sampling, the arrangement of the people was done in the order of their increase in age and selection using the same order (Burns & Grove, 2010).
In stratified sampling, the population was divided into groups depending on their age brackets (Burns & Grove, 2010). For instance, people who are in the age of twenties were in one group, thirties in another group, and so on.
The findings differed due to the sampling methods used. The majority of the people were between the ages of 30 to 60 and the sample random sampling included the majority of people from this age bracket. Its findings showed that most of the people affected by heart failure were at the age of ’40s and ’50s. In systematic sampling, the findings indicated that the majority of people affected by heart failure were in the forties.
Finally, stratified sampling findings indicated that the majority of the people affected by heart failure were in the forties but the percentage was lower than that of systematic sampling. The differences in these findings were due to the selection methods with a random selection having the majority of the people in the sample having an age bracket of 30-60 years thus giving a different finding from other methods.
References
Britton, A., Scott, L., & Settle-Kline, K. (2004). The effects of nursing interventions to enhance mental health and quality of life among individuals with heart failure. Applied Nursing Research, 17, 248-256.
Burns, N. & Grove, S. (2011). Understanding nursing research building evidence based practice (fifth edition). Maryland: Elsevier.