DISCUSSION 2 WEEK 9 1

Discussion 2 Week 9

Abdul Salam

Walden University

DISCUSSION 2 WEEK 9 2

Discussion 2 Week 9

Weekly Reflection and Questions

Post by Day 4 what you accomplish this week and post any questions, comments, or

concerns in the Discussion 2 area.

In this week I am still working on methodology portion of my thesis. The underlying

purpose of this research is to assess the relationship between work related stress (independent

variable) and medication error (dependent variable) made among medical health care

professionals (physicians, residents, nurses, and pharmacists). The research design I’m planning

to use for my dissertation topic is non-experimental retrospective study design where all

randomly selected medical staffs (physicians, residents, nurses, and pharmacist) will consent to

complete the work-related stress questionnaire and all reported medication error data made

between May 2013 till April 2014 will be collected from Quality Management department.

According to Frankfort-Nachmias and Nachmias (2008), the population for my research

study needs to have a set of specifications that should include content, extent, and time. My

population is going to be include individuals who have faced stressfull situations working in

medical facility and the patients who have faced errors at hand of those individuals. The

sampling unit is all medical practioners facing stress. According to Frankfort-Nachmias and

Nachmias (2008) My population will be finite because it contains a countable number of

sampling units; this is also referred to as survey sampling.

The target population for this study are the healthcare workers (physicians, residents,

nurses, and pharmacists) working in King Abdulaziz Hospital of National Guard Health Affairs

eastern region of Al Ahsa in Saudi Arabia. The issue is that since the healthcare staff have

DISCUSSION 2 WEEK 9 3

limited time, so it will not be feasible to conduct in-depth interview with all rather a structures

questionnaire and survey will be easier and convenient for them as well so I will be using it and

will be collecting stress related data by using structured survey questionnaire and medication

error data will be collected from the quality management department of NGHA.

The sampling strategy that I will use is purposive sampling. Purposive sampling is also

known as subjective, selective and judgmental sampling (Marshall, 1996). I will be consulting

that particular doctor who has experienced stress in their professional and personal life so that

they can give their feedback on its implications. I have selected this sampling strategy because its

main goal is to focus on the specific elements of a population which will be relevant to the

dissertation topic. In the broad spectrum of purposive sampling, I will be focusing on extreme

case sampling and expert sampling to gather most proficient and relevant data.

The two main issues with purposive sampling are that it can be highly prone to researcher

bias and it is complex to defend the representative of the sample which makes this method a bit

low on reliability (Bryman, & Bell, 2011). I plan to minimize these issues by taking second

opinion from the members of my dissertation committee before finalizing the particular

individuals who will be included in my dissertation sample. This way their vast experience will

reduce the researcher bias and enhance reliability of my dissertation.

DISCUSSION 2 WEEK 9 4

References

Bryman, A., & Bell, E. (2011). Business Research Methods 3e. Oxford university press.

Frankfort-Nachmias, C., & Nachmias, D. (2008). Research methods in the social sciences (pp.

162-185). New York, NY: Worth

Marshall, M. N. (1996). Sampling for qualitative research. Family Practice, 13(6), 522–525.