Data analysis
The unit of analysis for this study was the patient.
The dollar values of hospital direct costs were logtransformed
considering skewed distribution. Descriptive
and exploratory analyses were performed using
SPSS 15.0 (SPSS Inc. Chicago, IL, USA) to describe
the sample and assess the assumptions of the path
modeling. The types, numbers and amounts of
nursing interventions were identified by descriptive
statistics.