Messina Article: Spearman’s Rank Correlation

There has been use of the Spearman rank correlation coefficient by the Messina et al. study so that it is possible to establish relationship between patient satisfaction and inpatient admissions in teaching hospitals as well as nonteaching hospitals. In this study, there is use of variables like patient admissions and satisfaction of patients. In this study, there is need to know in detail about the features of teaching and non-teaching hospitals and for this descriptive statistics are used by the researchers in the form of medians, means and standard deviation. In this, mean scores are given more importance as through this it is able to know about the patient satisfaction and inpatient volume figures due to which admission rates can be known. The data obtained from these descriptive statistics can be used to perform the measures of skewness and kurtosis as well (Messina, Scotti, Caney & Zipp, 2009).

In this case, there are two sets of data i.e. admission of inpatients and satisfaction among patients. There exists relationship or link between these two data and strength of this can be known by the Spearman’s Rank Correlation Coefficient. This is done with the aim to know the details about the strength of the relationship of variables that exists between two sets of data. BY this, this method can be known to be statistical and thus, this can give the presence of a relationship in positive term or negative term. A small sample size is taken as a data in the Messina et al. study and so it is not possible to provide correct information about the normal distribution. So, there is need to analyze the data more and so there has been use of the Spearman coefficient of rank order correlation. For this, relationship between the independent and dependent variable are used. In this case, independent variable is the patient satisfaction mean score and dependent variable is the volume measured by admissions (Messina, Scotti, Caney & Zipp, 2009).

In the study, it is found that in this case i.e. relationship between patient satisfaction and admission volume in teaching hospitals, r=0.581, p<0.001. This indicates that the correlation between them is significant and positive statistically. These results can be lead to the conclusion that as there is decrease in the admission volumes, there is progressive increase in the rates of patient satisfaction. For the non-teaching hospitals also, the Spearman Coefficient of rank order correlation is used and between the patient satisfaction and admission volume the results are r=-0.097, p=0.579. This indicates that correlation between these in non-teaching hospitals is non-significant. So conclusion can be drawn that even if the volumes of admission is changed, there is no significant change in the performance of non-teaching hospitals. There is no much change in the satisfaction of patient (Stommel, & Dontje, 2014).

In the teaching and non-teaching hospitals, there has been use of aggregate figures which is drawn from the data of 5 years and it is found that the mean number of admissions is 19,111. The aggregate satisfactions mean score in the last 5 years is 82.57. Under this, the minimum score is 79.05 and maximum is 86.18. There was no normal distribution of the admission volumes. In corresponding to this, there was normal distribution of the patient satisfaction. For the combined sample, the Pearman rank order correlation analysis is used and the results are r = -0.287, p = 0.018. This indicates that the patient satisfaction and admission volume has a significant negative co-relation. So it can be concluded that as the inpatient volumes are lowered than the patient satisfaction mean scores become high. In these hospitals, when there is increase in the inpatient volumes then there is corresponding decrease in the patient satisfaction. This clearly indicates that the Spearman’s approach is used to establish correlation between these two variables and it is found that there exists casual relationship or link between these two.

Under this study, the variables are analyzed properly and it showed that there was proper use of the Spearman rank correlation coefficient and the research question was answered properly. There was also use of various other aspects like treatments, tests, personal issues, physician, room, discharge, meals, nurses, admission process, family and visitors and all these support the study. The use of these variables also makes the study conclusive. A five point Likert scale was used for measuring the patient satisfaction levels and for this the data was changed on a 0 to 100 scale. In this, 0 scale is the lowest and 100 is the highest which indicated poor and very good respectively.

Due to these variables, a relationship between the two aspects was discovered. When the statistics were used then the results which were obtained indicated that ideas were very practical and conclusions were made in the study. In the teaching and non-teaching hospitals, the relationship between patient satisfaction and in-patient volume is positive and so there exists extreme difference between these two hospitals. It is possible to receive a good result in the research question if the variables are used in the sample point (Stommel, & Dontje, 2014).

By the use of the Spearman’s correlation coefficient, strength of a monotonic relationship can be known between paired data. This coefficient is a measure of statistics. A monotonic function is described in which with the increase in the independent variable, there is either increase in it or no decrease ever. The two level variables were being used as the formula and so there was use of the correlation coefficient which helped in knowing about the mean and distance values for two variables that were involved.

In the health care facilities and organization, these variables are of great importance and are present there. These variables are highly responsible for the quality of care provided in the health facilities and so the areas of improvement are made to depend on the relationship between these two variables. Due to this, it is possible for the health facilities to provide services to their customers which are of high and better quality. Also by doing so it is possible for the health facilitators to exist in the market (Stommel, & Dontje, 2014).

References

Messina, D. J., Scotti, D. J., Caney, R., & Zipp, G. P. (2009). The Relationship Between Patient Satisfaction and Inpatient Admissions Across Teaching and Nonteaching Hospitals. Journal of Healthcare Management. 54(3). 177-190.

Stommel, M. , & Dontje, K. (2014). Statistics for Advanced Practice Nurses and Health Professionals. New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company.