DISCUSSION 2 WEEK 8

Discussion 2 Week 8
Abdul Salam
Walden University

DISCUSSION 2 WEEK 8

Discussion 2 Week 8
Weekly Reflection and Questions
By Day 4 what you accomplish this week and post any questions, comments, or concerns
in the Discussion 2 area.
In this week I moved to the methodology chapter of my thesis. In methodology chapter I
faced difficulty in narrowing down my sample population for the research. 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 Im 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 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

DISCUSSION 2 WEEK 8

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 8
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), 522525.