Deck 19: Research: How Health Care Advances

Question 1

Clinical research focuses primarily on:

A) results of patients' medical care in a specified time period.
B) steps in the process of medical care such as early detection, diagnosis, and treatment of disease or injury.
C) care for the chronically ill.
D) cost-effectiveness of experimental interventions.

Answer 1

B

Question 2

The careers of all nurse practitioners who graduated in 2007 are being tracked to determine the appropriateness of their education to their subsequent work role. This is an example of:

A) a case-control study.
B) an experimental study.
C) a prevalence study.
D) a cohort study.

Answer 2

D

Question 3

Research studies may be observational or experimental. The essential difference between experimental and observational studies is that in experimental investigations:

A) the study and control groups are equal in size.
B) the investigator actively intervenes by manipulating one variable to determine what happens with the other variable.
C) controls are used.
D) a retrospective approach is used to collect data.

Answer 3

B

Question 4

In conducting experimental studies, ethical issues may arise about:

A) exposing research subjects to unknown risks or withholding beneficial treatments from control groups.
B) randomization in the selection of the research population.
C) requirements for long-term participation.
D) personal inconveniences of study participants.

Question 5

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is a federal agency charged with:

A) establishing Medicare payment policies.
B) updating diagnostic group definitions for Medicaid payment of clinical treatment.
C) improving outcomes and quality of healthcare services, reducing costs, improving patient safety, and fostering effective services.
D) challenging interest groups' definitions of "quality care."

Question 6

In evaluating the quality of health care, explicit standards differ from implicit standards in that:

A) explicit standards are developed and agreed upon in advance of the assessment to minimize variation and bias.
B) explicit standards represent physician reviewers' perceptions of current state-of-the-art medical practice.
C) explicit standards rely upon personal and professional judgments of the reviewers.
D) explicit standards are prescribed by regulatory agencies.

Question 7

Empirical standards for assessing the quality of healthcare practices (also known as "performance report cards") rely upon:

A) prior experimental studies of the population of interest.
B) observational results of studies of the population of interest.
C) distributions, averages, ranges, and other data of variability measures and information collected from similar health services providers to compare practices to a norm.
D) comparing regulatory agency findings and reports.

Question 8

In contrast to traditional, randomized controlled studies, outcomes research evaluates results of healthcare processes by:

A) focusing studies on the "real world" of physician offices, hospitals, clinics, and homes and includes patients' functional status.
B) relying principally on analyses of patients' lab results and diagnostic measures to determine functional status.
C) compiling anecdotal reports from the patients' primary providers.
D) using insurance companies' claims datA)

Question 9

A goal of comparative effectiveness research is to:

A) enhance healthcare treatment by developing and disseminating evidence on the effectiveness, benefits, and harms of different treatment options.
B) reduce the costs of treatment.
C) reduce the number of medical errors.
D) compare what physician is best for a particular illness.

Question 10

Which of the following is a meta-analysis of several high-quality randomized, controlled clinical trials?

A) Observational study
B) Randomized controlled clinical trial
C) Case series
D) Systematic review