Evidence-Based Practice for Nurses

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

KEY TERMS

At the end of this chapter, you will be able to:

‹ Define epidemiology
‹ Describe the use of epidemiology
in nursing practice
‹ Discuss infectious disease using the
epidemiologic triangle
‹ Describe transmission
‹ Describe the steps to an outbreak
investigation
‹ Describe count data, ratios,
proportions, and rates
‹ Define and compute prevalence
‹ Define and compute incidence
‹ Explain descriptive characteristics
of person, place, and time when
examining the distribution of disease
in a population
‹ Describe descriptive study designs,
including case reports and series,
ecologic studies, and cross-sectional
studies
‹ Construct a 2 × 2 data table

‹ Calculate a prevalence ratio for a

cross-sectional study design

‹ Describe analytic study designs,

including case-control studies, cohort

studies, and intervention studies

‹ Calculate an odds ratio for a case-

control study design

‹ Calculate relative risk for a cohort

study design

‹ Define screening

‹ Calculate sensitivity, specificity, and

positive predictive value

‹ Explain the relationship between

sensitivity and specificity

‹ Describe the use of epidemiologic

designs in evaluating health

outcomes and health services in

evidence-based practice

‹ List ethical concerns related to

epidemiology

aggregate data
analytic epidemiology
case-control
case reports or series
cohort studies
count data
cross-sectional
descriptive epidemiology
determinants
distribution
ecologic fallacy
ecologic studies

endemic

epidemic

epidemiology

etiology

exposure

false negative

false positive

incidence

intervention study

odds ratio

pandemic

period prevalence

point prevalence

positive predictive value

prevalence

proportion

rate

ratio

relative risk

screening

sensitivity

specificity

temporal ambiguity