Introduction
The article under review is entitled “Patient Satisfaction with Hospital Care and Nurses in England: An Observational Study.” Since it was published in BMJ Open, which subjects all its articles to an open peer review process, one can conclude that the article is peer-reviewed. The work was published in 2018; since this publication date is not older than five years, the article can be considered current. The source supports the topic of the paper because it is concerned with patient satisfaction.
Discussion
Researchers used a large sample to arrive at the conclusions of their study. Aiken et al. (2018) used survey results of 66 348 hospital patients discharged from 161 NHS trusts in England and 2963 inpatient nurses from 31 of the same 151 trusts. This sample size is appropriate for the findings of the research to be generalizable to the larger population. Although the study utilized the quantitative design, researchers did not explicitly state the hypothesis and null hypothesis in the article. However, from the discussion section, one might conclude that Aiken et al. (2018) hypothesized that patients had high levels of confidence and trust in registered nurses in NHS hospitals in England. Their findings supported this hypothesis, indicating that the claims about uncaring nurses and care deficits in hospitals did not match reality.
Conclusion
The researchers did not state the research questions for their study in the question form. Rather, they indicated that their study sought “to identify an action agenda that may hold promise for improving patients’ experiences with hospital care in England” (Aiken et al., 2018, p. 2). This statement can be considered the aim of the study, and it clearly outlines the goal the scholars pursued when initiating the research. The objective was to identify patient perceptions of hospital care and their relation to hospital work environments, nurse staffing levels, and patients’ confidence in doctors and nurses.
Reference List
Aiken, L.H. et al. (2018) ‘Patient satisfaction with hospital care and nurses in England: an observational study’, BMJ Open, 8(1), pp. 1-8.