APPLICATION OF EPIDEMOLOGY IN NURSING

Running head: APPLICATION OF EPIDEMOLOGY IN NURSING
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Application of Epidemiology in Nursing Practice
Name of the Student
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Authors Note

APPLICATION OF EPIDEMOLOGY IN NURSING
APPLICATION OF EPIDEMIOLOGY IN NURSING PRACTISE
Epidemiology is the analysis and study of health determinants or patterns of health that
are responsible for causing disease in a particular population. The epidemiologists conducts the
study with a definite population and collects the data depending upon the study type and finally
analyzes and interpret the result (Gulis & Fujino, 2015). The major types of research includes
cause disease outbreak in a population, method of transmission of disease, monitoring the
condition and also finding the effect of the drugs in different populations. The epidemiology
study helps the healthcare professionals in many ways such as understanding the issue, planning
a proper strategy to cure the disease in the community or healthcare services and applying
correct prevention to control the situation and helping the community or a particular population
in resolving the condition (Frerot et al., 2018). The studies help in planning a method in nursing
research, evaluating the research literature, developing a structure for creating clinical decisions,
planning treatment for the patient or community who are at need and also it provides an
opportunity to enhance the nursing practice (Birmann et al., 2016). Polypharmacy or multi-drug
treatment is used in clinical centers to cure chronic diseases. It is usually prescribed to older
adults as they suffer from chronic diseases and needs complex care. However, the consumption
give rise to many chronic complications such as renal failure, diabetes, pain and even increases
the risk of mortality. The main purpose of the below paper is to critically review an article
named “The epidemiology of polypharmacy in older adults: register-based prospective cohort
study” and apply the knowledge gained from the article in nursing practice.
Study design of the article
The main objective of the article was to identify the effect of polypharmacy among the
older adults and the risks associated with using multiple drugs (Morin et al., 2018).

APPLICATION OF EPIDEMOLOGY IN NURSING
Polypharmacy is a combination of drugs which are often used in complex care among the older
adults and also in middle aged people. It increases the risk factors such as high death rate among
the older adults due to less immune capacity of the body and also due to complex drug-drug
interaction which the body fails to resist (Golchin et al., 2015). The study conducted with the
help of cohort study where the older adults above 65years were included as a participate for the
research. The cohort study or cohort sampling a method where the participates or the population
with same characteristics are included and cross-sectional intervals are performed. It is one of the
most common designs that are used in the epidemiological research (Setia, 2016). It also helps in
identifying the risk factors associated with the drugs. The study followed about 1.7 million
elderly adults who were under treatment which was recognized by from health care services. The
study aimed to identify the effect of multiple drugs at the beginning of the study and the
incidence of those drugs. The study design chosen is appropriate because it helps in identifying
the effects of drugs among the population with same characteristics. It also performed a
prospective longitudinal study among participates. The inclusion criteria of the study was the age
factor and the baseline was also same for all participates. The exclusion criteria that was
followed are participates with duplicate identity and other factor was older participates exposed
to multiple drug treatment for more than 5 and 10 years. The criteria was useful because the
greater period of exposure may lead to false result (Morin et al., 2018).
Analysis of the data and results obtained
The assessment of the result was done with the help of three characteristics such as the
date of allocation, the amount of drug that is distributed to each participates and the amount of
daily dose. The authors divided the population for measuring the characteristics of any individual
at the starting point. Other characteristics that were included are education and place of living