Hypotheses are statements about populations and is a prediction of what will occur between the two variables. Hypothesis testing is the basis for all research that is scientific, within healthcare, the use of hypothesis testing determines improvements in patient outcomes. Leaders in nursing are responsible for ensuring that the research is continuously applied to improve the quality of care. The null hypothesis shows the lack of relationship between the variables or that there is no effect on the variables. If the research design is good, the data should show patterns allowing the researcher to reject or fail to reject the null hypothesis. If the null hypothesis is rejected the alternative hypothesis is accepted. The decision becomes based on the statistical analysis of the data gathered during the study.
Statistics are used to reveal the truth about the data, It is used to decide whether one of only two possibilities are shown in the data. There is an effect on the population or there isn’t an effect. If there is an effect, the null is rejected. If the null isn’t rejected it indicates no effect to be shown by the evidence.
One example of how research uses hypothesis testing is a case study of quitting smoking with nicotine patches. A second example could be determining weight loss for diet verses exercise,
Hypothesis Testing – Examples and Case Studies.
June Helbig & Jayme Ambrose. (2022). Applied Statistics for Health Care. Grand Canyon University (Ed.). (2022). Applied statistics for health care (2nd ed.).