NURSING 475 Step Five: RESEARCH APPLICATION

STEP FIVE: The Assignment: n Select a nursing intervention you performed on this patient. What are some of the decisions that were made in the provision of nursing care? Were these based on tradition or is there scientific evidence to support them?

STEP FIVE: The Assignment n Formulate a researchable problem related to that intervention. (“Why were things done this way?”), “I wonder what would have happened if……” “Would there have been a better way to….”)

STEP FIVE: The Assignment n Conduct a literature search to identify nursing research studies that address your research problem. n Find three research articles from peer reviewed nursing or medical journals.

Step 5: The Assignment n For each study, summarize the study’s purpose, design, methods and findings. n For each study, analyze the strengths and limitations of the research and support your argument. n Discuss the generalization of the research findings to your patient and/or family.

Step Five: The Assignment n Can you generalize all/some of the findings and apply to the care of your patient? Why or why not?

STEP SIX: Format n Correct grammar must be used throughout the paper. n Use APA format (5th edition) n Do not exceed 22 pages (excluding appendices and reference list). n Use headings and subheadings for each section of the paper.

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association n Often shortened to APA MANUAL. n A copy is available at Ready Reference. n Call number is WZ 345 P512P n It is the fifth edition.

These Databases may help your research efforts: n CINAHL, available from 1982-present n MEDLINE, available from 1966-present n While the Cochrane Library Evidence- based Medicine is considered the Gold Standard, some of its topic reviews contain a collection of research articles which are reviewed for their efficacy.

Databases continued: n At this time, in your research career, use only MEDLINE and CINAHL for this particular assignment. n The properties of each database will be discussed separately.

Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL )

What does CINAHL include? n Journal articles n Dissertations n Chapter and book citations n Standards of professional practice n Audiovisual materials and educational software n Conference Proceedings

CINAHL is available online from 1982 to the present. Prior to 1982, you can use the “Red Index” Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature found in Reference to look for citations.

CINAHL is a proprietary (subscription) database.

As you begin to search: A few helpful hints…. n Don’t restrict your search to OVID full text. OVID has some full-text articles, but the Library has access to about 6,000 electronic journal subscriptions. n The Library also owns journals in print format which may go further back in time than the electronic version.

Helpful hints: n Begin your search with either the CINAHL or the MEDLINE database. Do NOT go into the OVID full- text first. You will waste considerable amounts of time and may not find what you want.

More helpful hints: n Keep one thought to a line. n Combine terms as set numbers. n Do not combine “or’s” and “and’s” together in the same search line.

SAMPLE CINAHL SEARCH n Go to the Library web page, n n Scroll down the left side of the page to MEDLINE/PubMed, click on MEDLINE/PubMed. Select OVID. n CLICK on the blue capsule.

Searching: n After you get to MEDLINE, you will choose the database you wish. Select them ONE at a TIME since you are moving between government and proprietary databases and they each have separate and unique subject headings.

SEARCHING CINAHL n Cursor down the list of databases until you reach CINAHL. Click on this. n In the search box, place the following subject headings on separate lines. It will be best to explode and focus each term. Each will have its own set number.

Searching Continued: n When you “Or” these terms together, you have a huge number of citations. n Next, insert the condition, disease, or other search term you wish to research.

Exploding terms: n Select the Explode box if you wish to retrieve citations using the selected term and all of its more specific terms.

Focusing terms: n Select the Focus box if you wish to limit your search to those documents in which your subject heading is considered the major point of the article

Exploding and Focusing n You may do both, explode and focus. n You may decide to neither focus or explode, that’s alright too.

Searching: n Combine the term myocardial infarction n AND the terms “Or’ed” and you have 102 citations. Next begin the limitation process.

The citations are principally in English, but foreign language documents exist in CINAHL. n Limit to English since the Library has very few journals written in foreign languages. n Click on the word English below the search box.

Limiting to years and English

Limit to years: depending on the assignment, you may wish to limit retrieval to a certain number of years. Usually citations from the last three to five years are the most acceptable.

CINAHL allows you to limit: You may request only peer- reviewed journals. You may request only nursing journals. Each time you limit, you must request only one limit in any one specific box.

You must limit these one at a time.

DISPLAYING THE SEARCH: n As you begin to review the citations, look to the right below each citation. n It will say: abstract, complete reference and often full text. n The full text may be in different print formats. It may be PDF, ASCII, or HTML.

Article retrieval: n If the article isn’t available in full text in OVID, it may be in the electronic journals which the Library owns or available in a paper copy on the third floor.

FINDING THE ARTICLES n In the search containing 13 citations that was done, here is what the library owns: –7 of the full-text are in the CINAHL database and could be printed from there. –3 are not available. Request an inter- library loan. –3 are available in print and/or electronic versions.

CINAHL does not use the same indexing terms as MEDLINE.

MEDLINE n Includes a nursing index. The International Nursing Index is here. n The time line is further back, records are included from n There are many foreign language journals in this database. If you request an inter-library loan, of a foreign language journal article, the article will be in the language indicated on the screen.

Go to the Ovid Searches: n Select MEDLINE instead of CINAHL as the database to search. n Select the years 1996-present. n You will have more “limits” available. n The “peer review” limit is NOT available in MEDLINE.

SEARCHING: n To facilitate the search, Include a group of terms that are applicable. Each term is added on a separate line. n Each term is “exploded” and “focused” when you mark the box opposite the term. n Select all subheadings and continue.

Searching continued: n Here are the terms to add. Place each on a separate line in your search strategy. n Nursing research n Pilot projects n Data collection n Reproducibility of results n Prospective studies n Longitudinal studies. n Research

Searching: n Use “or” (which is like the mathematical “addition” sign +) n “or”ing (or adding) the subject headings of the 6 terms you have listed will create a larger set of results. n Next you add the surgical or medical condition that is of interest to you. n Use myocardial infarction to be consistent with the search in CINAHL.

Searching: n When you “OR” you get “more”, but when you take this string of OR’s and “AND” it to another term on a different line, your retrieval will be less.

Limiting: n You may do a number of “limits” at the same time. On the following screen, the limits are years, ages, language, and to “human only”.

Limiting: n You may limit to a type of journal, such as nursing journals. n MEDLINE doesn’t have a limit for peer reviewed journals.

Limiting: n As you can see, each limit decreases the search significantly. You may wish to select articles from both CINAHL and MEDLINE. Some may be duplicates. n Some may not be in full text. You may have to check the catalog and e-journal list to see if the library holds the journal.

Number of journals available n Of the ten journals obtained from the search, 7 are available in full text from Ovid Medline. n Two are available electronically n One would have to be inter-library loaned.