Nursing Reaserch

Nursing Research Study Summary
The heights and weights of children can be key indicators of normal growth and development for each child and should be done routinely in a variety of patient care settings. The purpose of this paper is to provide a summary on the recent article in the Journal of Pediatric Nursing, Evaluation of Linear Measurement and Growth Plotting in an Inpatient Setting (Lipman, Euler, Markowitz, & Ratcliffe, 2009), in which nursing researchers documented an evaluation of the processes of obtaining measurement in their urban children’s hospital.
Background
The issue of a lack of properly done and routine measurements in pediatrics has been the topic of many studies done in the settings of pediatric and family practice offices. Inpatient admissions offer a unique opportunity to assess the growth of children. The purpose of the study being summarized was to “determine adherence to hospital policy and accuracy of growth documentation by obtaining data on the linear measuring practices to inform and improve nursing care” (Lipman, Euler, Markowitz, & Ratcliffe, 2009). The setting for the study was an urban children’s hospital in which the staff is exclusively registered nurses.   “Registered nurses are significantly more likely to measure children accurately” (Hench, et al., 2005).   Proper measurement and plotting of growth is invaluable information during a child’s development.   Nurses in this urban hospital have more interactions with the patients and are responsible for measurements to be taken at admission.   As nurses, we can gather pertinent data and relay any deviations from normal growth to the healthcare provider. The objective of this study was to evaluate if measurements were done in a timely manner, if they were done correctly, and if they were documented accurately in the inpatient setting.

Methods
This study was a quantitative research study in which the study design was a retrospective random chart review.   A random numbers table... [continues]

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