Statistics is defined by Bennett, Briggs, & Triola (2009), as “the science of collecting, organizing, and interpreting data” (p. 1). Almost every profession uses statistics in some way to guide in making good decisions based on current research. The nursing profession relies heavily on current research to guide patient care with the integration of evidenced-based practice. Statistics provide valuable information to caregivers to help them understand, plan, evaluate, and improve the quality of patient care. In the acute care hospital setting there are ongoing measurements of such things as patient satisfaction, hand washing compliance rates, catheter acquired urinary tract infections, and central access infection rates, just to name a few. The collection of this data involves descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, and levels of measurements. Acute care hospitals use descriptive statistics in many ways. Descriptive statistics describes raw data in the form of samples or graphs (Bennett, Briggs, & Triola, 2009). One area in which they are used in the hospital is to evaluate hand washing compliance of health care providers. According to Vincent (2003), nosocomial infections occur in approximately 30% of patients in the intensive care setting and are associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Research shows that effective hand washing can prevent many hospital acquired infections (Vitez, 2010). In the hospital setting, hand washing compliance is monitored on an ongoing basis. Health care workers who come in contact with patients are observed by an unidentified member of the staff who monitors the subject upon entering and leaving a patient room. Hand hygiene can be performed by either by washing with soap and water or use of hand sanitizers.
The expectation is that the subject will wash their hands upon entering the room and upon leaving