Abstract

• Background
  Nursing intervention studies often suffer from a selection bias introduced by failure of random assignment. Evaluation with selection bias could under or over-estimate any intervention's effects. PS matching (PSM) can reduce a selection bias through matching similar Propensity Scores (PS). PS is defined as the conditional probability of being treated given the individual's covariates and it can be reused to balance the covariates of two groups.
• Purpose
  This study was done to assess the significance of PSM as an alternative evaluation method of nursing interventions.
• Method
  An intervention study for patients with some baseline individual characteristic differences between two groups was used for this demonstration. The result of a t-test with PSM was compared with a t-test without matching.
• Results
  The level of HbA1c at 12 months after baseline was different between the two groups in terms of matching or not.
• Conclusion
  This study demonstrated the effects of a quasi-random assignment. Evaluation using PSM can reduce a selection bias impact that affects the result of the nursing intervention. Analyzing nursing research more objectively to reduce selection bias using PSM is needed.
• Keywords: Propensity score matching; Nursing intervention; Evaluation

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