Hi Elizabeth,

It depends upon your problem, & purpose statements as well as your research questions. What you have written here is a pretty straight forward quantitative study. However, if you want to look into what and why particular interventions worked, I would suggested a phenomenological study. You can still answer your numbers of how many, but you would also be able to get a lot more detail with a phenomenological study. They both have their advantages and disadvantages. The quantitative study is pretty much limited to statistical numbers of how many interventions worked but those numbers can then be generalized to a larger population & may provide a more effective study because of that. The phenomenological study, on the other hand, is not generalizeable to a larger population; however, you can get a depth of information you cannot from a quantitative study. You can look at why these interventions worked when others did not. Did these interventions work because of the individuals' personalities? Was it really the interventions that prevented the deaths or another factor & if it was another factor, what was it? ...and so on. I hope this helps?

Let me know what you decide. You have me curious. Good luck!

Denise A.K. Goins

You need to handle it in the outcome measurement. If you would like to measure death, you may refer to hospital record or death certificate etc. Then you can compare the number of deaths in both groups for analysis. There is no way to calculate the number of prevented death without any data related to death.

If you would like to estimate which group would have a higher risk of death, you may rely on some instruments such as Charlson's Comorbidity Index to measure comoribity, which is associated with mortality. If you want cause-specific deaths (e.g. death from cardiovascular disease), you may use Framingham Risk Score for estimation.

Your statistical approach would depend on your study design. Feel free to recommend and ask if you want more explanation. Thanks.