Midterm

Question 1

What is descriptive epidemiology?

Answer 1

Defines the differences, similarities, and correlations of key areas of any health problem. It is used to describe the distribution of disease and other health-related states and events in terms of personal characteristics (who), geographical distribution (where), and time (when).

Question 2

What is analytic epidemiology?

Answer 2

Examines the origins (why) and causal (how) factors of disease and other health-related events. The goal of this is to identify factors that increase or decrease risk.

Question 3

What is the natural history of disease?

Answer 3

the progression of a disease from its preclinical state to its clinical state, and these stages provide a framework for understanding approaches to the prevention and control of disease.

— stage of susceptibility
— subclinical stage
— clinical stage
— recovery stage

Question 4

Aggregates

Answer 4

subpopulations

Question 5

What are health disparities?

Answer 5

differences in incidence or prevalence of illness, mortality, injury, or
violence, or differences in opportunities to reach optimal health given disadvantages because of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, sexual orientation, geographic location, or other reasons.

Question 6

What is a population?

Answer 6

the total number of inhabitants constituting a particular race, class, or group in a specified area.

Question 7

What is specificity?

Answer 7

a measure of validity, the tests ability to yield a negative result when the person does not have the disease, condition, or disorder
(true negatives) / (true negatives + false positives)

Question 8

What is sensitivity?

Answer 8

a measure of validity, the tests ability to yield a positive result when the person actually has the disease, condition, or disorder
(true positives) / (true positives + false negatives)

Question 9

What is a likelihood ratio?

Answer 9

combines sensitivity and specificity data to help the clinician quantify how the odds of disease change based on a test result.

Question 10

Gold standard

Answer 10

test with 100% specificity and sensitivity

Question 11

What is positive predictive value (PPV)?

Answer 11

the probability of a person actually having a disease when the screening or diagnostic test is positive,
a value of the proportion of people in any given population who are screened as positive and who actually have the disease,
the number of true positives divided by everyone who tested positive.

Question 12

What is negative predictive value (NPV)?

Answer 12

A measure of the probability that the disease is absent when there is a negative test,
the probability of the person being free from the disease when the screening or diagnostic test is negative,
a value of the proportion of people in any given population who are screened as negative and who actually are negative (the probability that a result is a true negative).
It is the number of true negatives divided by all of those who tested negative.

Question 13

What level of significance exhibits the probability that an observed difference or relationship exists?

Answer 13

The significance level used in most nursing studies is 0.05.

Question 14

What is epidemiology?

Answer 14

The study of disease distribution within populations and the risk factors that affect distribution.

Question 15

What is the triad of disease?

Answer 15

Susceptible host
External agent
Environment

Question 16

What is primary prevention?

Answer 16

Prevention that occurs during the stage of susceptibility, true prevention. (immunizations, birth control, seat belts, hand-washing).

Question 17

What is secondary prevention?

Answer 17

Prevention that occurs during the subclinical (pre-symptomatic) stage of disease, screening (mammograms, colonoscopies)

Question 18

What is tertiary prevention?

Answer 18

Prevention that occurs during the clinical stage of disease, aims to reduce severity of disease (cardiac rehab, PT/OT)

Question 19

What is the Campaign for Action?

Answer 19

A national campaign to transform healthcare through nursing. The goals are based on recommendations from the Institute of Medicine’s Future of Nursing report.

Question 20

What is population health?

Answer 20

The study of the distribution of disease within populations and the risk factors that affect it.

Question 21

What incidence?

Answer 21

The occurrence of new cases of disease or injury in a population over a specified period of time.

Question 22

What is prevalence?

Answer 22

The proportion of persons in a population who have a disease or condition, the burden of disease in the population.

Question 23

What is validity?

Answer 23

The ability of a screening test to accurately identify those who have a disease.

Question 24

What is internal validity?

Answer 24

When a study measured what it was supposed to measure.

Question 25

What is external validity?

Answer 25

The generalizability of the results to other populations.

Question 26

What is reliability?

Answer 26

The ability of an outcome being replicated if the test is repeated.

Question 27

What is the odds ratio?

Answer 27

A measure of how strongly an event or outcome is associated with an exposure or risk factor. The odds ratio tells us how much higher the odds of exposure are among case patients than controls.

Question 28

What is relative risk?

Answer 28

The measure of strengths of an association between an exposure and an outcome or disease. Relative risk is a comparison between two groups of people, or in the same group of people over time.

Question 29

What is absolute risk?

Answer 29

The number of people experiencing an event in relation to the population at large.

Question 30

What is attributable risk?

Answer 30

The amount of risk that can be attributed to an exposure when compared to the total population. (The prevalence of lung cancer among smokers divided by the prevalence of lung cancer among nonsmokers.)

Question 31

What is random error?

Answer 31

An error of measurement also known as non differential error. Random error occurs when there are fluctuations im around a true value because of sampling variability. Random errors are less serious than systematic errors (bias).

Question 32

What is systematic error?

Answer 32

An error of measurement also known as bias. Systematic error is any difference between the true value and the value actually obtained because of all causes other than sampling variability. It could be the result of a weak study design or a deliberate distortion of truth.

Question 33

What is selection bias?

Answer 33

Bias that occurs when the selected subjects in a sample are not a representation of the population of interest.

Question 34

What is volunteer bias?

Answer 34

Those who volunteer to participate in a study may have characteristics that are different than people who don’t volunteer.

Question 35

What is exclusion bias?

Answer 35

When a researcher established different eligibility criteria for the cases than the controls.

Question 36

What is withdrawal bias?

Answer 36

When people of a certain characteristic drop out of a group at a different rate than those in another group.

Question 37

What is information bias?

Answer 37

Deals with how information is collected for a study. Data collected from hospital records were likely not recorded for research purposes so they may be incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading.