title: Assessing quality of nursing care as a confounding variable in an outcome study on neurodevelopmental treatment.
abstract: When planning a study measuring the effects of a neurodevelopmental treatment (NDT), we were confronted with the methodological problem that while measuring the effects of NDT, a rival hypothesis is that the decision to implement the NDT might be related to the quality of nursing care. Therefore, we measured the quality of nursing care as a possible confounding variable in relation to this outcome study. The quality of nursing care was measured on 12 wards participating in the experimental and control groups of the outcome study. Data were collected from 125 patients and 71 nurses and patients' records. The findings showed no significant differences in the quality of nursing care between the 2 groups of wards (P = .49). This method may be useful to other researchers conducting outcome research and who are confronted with a similar methodological problem.
authors.affiliation: Division of Neurosciences, Rudolph Magnus Institute of Neuroscience, University Medical Centre Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands. T.Hafsteinsdottir@umcutrecht.nl
authors.forename: Thóra B
authors.initials: TB
authors.lastname: Hafsteinsdóttir
authors.forename: Cas
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kruitwagen
authors.forename: Karin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Strijker
authors.forename: Lies
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: van der Weide
authors.forename: Maria H F
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Grypdonck
mesh_terms: D015986:Confounding Factors, Epidemiologic; D018849:Controlled Clinical Trials as Topic / Q000592:standards*; D003625:Data Collection; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D006801:Humans; D009426:Netherlands; D009732:Nursing Care / Q000592:standards*; D015403:Nursing Evaluation Research / Q000458:organization & administration*; D015588:Observer Variation; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D011787:Quality of Health Care / Q000592:standards*; D019145:Rehabilitation Nursing / Q000592:standards; D012107:Research Design / Q000592:standards*; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D020521:Stroke / Q000451:nursing; D000071939:Stroke Rehabilitation; D016896:Treatment Outcome