Teaching code

4S000084

Credits

4

Coordinator

Simone Accordini

Language

Italian

Moodle Seminars 0

The teaching is organized as follows:

Learning outcomes

This course aims to develop students’ critical appraisal skills, with a particular emphasis on research articles and guidelines in the nursing literature. STATISTICS The aim of the course "Health statistics and clinical epidemiology" is to provide the theoretical and practical tools for assessing the frequency of diseases in human populations and the associated risk factors. The course therefore aims to provide expertise in epidemiology and bio-statistics. At the end of the course, the student must demonstrate to have understood the basic bio-statistical methods applied to epidemiology and the elements of an epidemiological study. EVIDENCE BASED NURSING This course provides an introduction to Evidence Based Practice principles, with a particolar emphasis on critical appraisal or assessement of research evidence in the health sciences literature. The development of critical appraisal skills is important for informing clinical practice. Students will learn important research skills such as how to define an answerable clinical research question, how to efficiently search for evidence on the most important databases, and develop the skills necessary to critically appraise or assess the validity and the generalizalibilty of a research article or a clinical practice guideline.

Program

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MM: METODOLOGIA DELL'INFERMIERISTICA BASATA SULLE EVIDENZE
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• The model and the elements of EBP process • Formulating an Answerable Question using the ‘P I C O’ principle • Searching evidence in scientific databases (eg. PubMed) to identify and to propose solutions/ innovations to clinical • Understanding results from quantitative evidence: RCT’s, cross.-sectional and observational studies, systematic reviews and meta-analysis • Understanding results from qualitative studies • Understanding the Clinical Practice Guidelines and their relevance in the nursing practice • Integrating clinical judgment, patient preferences and other available resources as a basis for clinical decision-making • The Evidence Hierarchy: definitions and examples
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MM: STATISTICA SANITARIA E EPIDEMIOLOGIA CLINICA
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DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS The collection of biomedical data: - stages of a scientific study; - population, sample and statistical units; - measurement process and measurement scales; - validity, accuracy and precision of a measuring instrument. The synthesis of biomedical data: - univariate frequency distributions (absolute, relative, relative percentage and cumulative frequencies); - graphical representation of a univariate frequency distribution (pie chart, bar chart, histogram, ogive); - bivariate frequency distributions (two-way frequency tables); - measures of central tendency (mode, percentiles and median, simple and weighted arithmetic means); - measures of dispersion (range, interquartile range, deviance, variance, standard deviation). PROBABILITY Elements of probability theory: - sample space, elementary and compound events, logical operations on events; - definitions of probability (classical, frequentist); - axiomatic theory of probabilities; - rules of probability calculation (addition, product); - independent and conditional probabilities; - probability estimates; - Bernoulli and Gauss distributions. Validity of a screening test (sensitivity and specificity). EPIDEMIOLOGY The objects of epidemiology: - outcome; - measures of disease frequency (prevalence, cumulative incidence, incidence rate); - determinant. The occurrence relation and measures of association: - attributable risk; - relative risk and odds ratio. Classification of epidemiological studies. Main designs of an epidemiological study: - ecological; - cross-sectional; - case-control; - cohort. INTRODUCTION TO STATISTICAL INFERENCE Point and interval estimation (confidence interval). The logic of statistical testing (null and alternative hypotheses, test statistic, p-value). The module is structured in frontal lessons during which the topics listed in the program are presented and discussed, exercises are solved and results of statistical analyses of biomedical data are interpreted. The didactic material (slides of the lessons, exercises with solutions) is made available to the students on the e-learning web page of the course (Moodle platform).

Bibliography

Examination Methods

The final examination consists of two written tests, one for each module. To pass the final examination, the student must get a grade of not less than 18/30 in each test. The final mark (in thirtieths) is the average of the two grades.
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MM: METODOLOGIA DELL'INFERMIERISTICA BASATA SULLE EVIDENZE
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Written exam in presence composed by different kind of questions such as open and close question to test: • evidence based nursing knowledge • critical thinking skills Appraising a research article using open questions
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MM: STATISTICA SANITARIA E EPIDEMIOLOGIA CLINICA
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The final examination is a written test (duration of the test: 2 hours). The written test covers potentially all the topics listed in the program and is structured in groups of questions related to solving exercises and understanding the theory. Items are formulated as short answer questions and multiple-choice questions. The questions in the written test aim to assess the ability: - to calculate descriptive statistics, probabilities and epidemiological measures; - to critically use descriptive statistics and epidemiological measures; - to choose the most appropriate study design in relation to a given research question in the field of epidemiology; - to interpret tables and graphs reporting the results of inferential statistical analyses of biomedical data. Each question is assigned a score. The grade of the test (expressed in thirtieths) is given by the sum of the scores obtained by correctly answering the individual questions. The test is considered passed if the student gains a minimum grade of 18/30.