Course Title HCIN 549 – Biostatistics

Course Project Aromatherapy Can Reduce Nausea in Patients Undergoing Chemotherapy

Competency Data and Knowledge Management

The final assignment in my Biostatistics course allowed me to explore how statistical analysis can

help elucidate the true nature of a problem. Data is a powerful tool because it can provide an immense

and powerful amount of information, but this is only true when one can take the time to truly understand

the tools necessary to digest that information. In this assignment where I analyzed an article that studied

aromatherapy’s effect on nausea rates in chemotherapy patients, I was able to critically examine how

applied statistical methodologies evaluated the problem being studied. Through the lens of statistical

analysis, I was able to understand what the authors were trying to discover and form practical opinions on

how well I believe the authors achieved that goal.

With this project, I was able to understand a clinical problem in the context of data-driven

solutions. Through analysis of the one-way ANOVA test and the Bonferroni post-hoc test used in various

studies, I was able to understand how the authors were able to come up with their proposed intervention

and how effective it was in addressing the problem. By analyzing data through these biostatistical

methods, I was able to see how solving a clinical problem depends on properly understanding how data

analysis reveals the information vital to its solution. By allowing me to identify a study, understand the

data within it, and assess how that data was analyzed, the project facilitated my satisfaction of the Data

and Knowledge Management Competency.