An 83-Year-Old Patient Is Admitted with a Temperature of 102°

question 13

Multiple Choice

An 83-year-old patient is admitted with a temperature of 102° F (38.8° C) , chest pain, and fatigue. The chest radiograph reveals an accumulation of fluid in the pleural space, which the physician removes by performing a thoracentesis. The nurse correctly records the purulent exudate as:

• A) effusion.
• B) emphysema.
• C) sputum.
• D) empyema.

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Definitions:

Interquartile Range

The difference between the 75th (third quartile) and 25th (first quartile) percentiles, measuring the spread of the middle 50% of data.

Coefficient of Variation

A standardized measure of dispersion of a probability distribution or frequency distribution, expressed as a ratio of the standard deviation to the mean.

Extreme Values

Data points that significantly differ from other observations. They can be unusually high or low and may be considered outliers.

Median

The middle value in a sorted, ascending or descending, list of numbers.