Nursing Research

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 RESEARCH CRITIQUE

(You need to have more than one or two sentences for each. Each area is worth 0.5 points)

1. Research Problem and Purpose

What are the problem and purpose of the referenced study? (Sometimes ONLY the purpose is stated clearly and the problem must be inferred from the introductory discussion of the purpose.)

• The purpose of this study was to describe the effects of participation in a medical –surgical certification and practice review course on the participants’ clinical nursing practice.
• The problem was to find out the effect of medical-surgical education on the nurses’ self-confidence, leadership, competency, and initiative.

2. Hypotheses and Research Questions/Statements

What are the hypotheses (or research questions/objectives) of the study? (Sometimes the hypotheses or study questions are listed in the Results section, rather than preceding the report of the methodology used. Occasionally, there will be no mention of hypotheses, but anytime there are inferential statistics used, the reader can recognize what the hypotheses are from looking at the results of statistical analysis.)

• The hypothesis was whether participation in the medical-surgical certification review course had a positive effect on the medical-surgical nursing practice in term s of participants’ self-confidence, competence, leadership, and initiative.

3. Literature Review/ Theoretical or Conceptual Framework

What is the quality of the literature review? Is the literature review current? Relevant?   Is there an integrated summary of the current knowledge base regarding the research problem, or does the literature review contain opinion or anecdotal articles without any synthesis or summary of the whole? (Sometimes the literature review is incorporated into the introductory section without being explicitly identified.) Is a theoretical or conceptual framework identified? If so, what is it?  This is not the same as the research design. Many times a framework is not actually mentioned. If one is not mentioned, just state there isn’t one.

• The quality of the literature review used was very good and accurate since a research proposal was submitted and approved by the institutional review board. In addition, a descriptive survey was developed and reviewed by expert medical –surgical nurses for face validity.
• Participants were registered nurses hence making the review current and relevant due to the fact that the questions were also well designed. The conceptual framework was the review of the literature.

4. Population

What population was sampled? How was the population sampled? Describe the method and criteria. How many subjects were in the sample? Is the setting or study group adequately described? Is the setting appropriate for the research question? What type of sampling strategy was used? Was it appropriate? Was the sample size adequate?

• The population sampled was 119 nurses. The survey tool included a Likert scale and an open-ended question.
• Each participant was asked to rate the degree to which medical-surgical nursing practice using the definitions for self-confidence, competence, leadership and initiative. The open-ended question required nurses to explain in writing the impact of the course on their practice.
• The subjects that were in the sample were 119. The study group was adequately designed since they were nurses who had just come from medical-surgical nursing practice. The setting was very appropriate.
• The sampling strategy used was stratified random sampling since only nurses who completed more than 80% of the course were sampled. This method of sampling was appropriate and adequate because the nurses sampled had actually covered a larger percentage of the course.

5. Protection of Human Research Participants

What steps were taken to protect human research subjects? Don’t forget IRB.

• The surveys were mailed back to a central nursing office where an administrative staff member not associated with the study opened it.

6. Research Design

Using your textbook, what was the design of the study? If the design was modeled from previous research or pilot studies, please describe. (Chapter 8)

• The research design was quantitative since it defined relationship between nursing and effects of professional education. This research was modeled from previous research carried.............

Nursing Research

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Nursing Research

Introduction

The reviewed article is on a research conducted by Chad Ellis O’Lynn, a registered nurse and a holder of Ph.D. in nursing. The issue being studied was Gender-Based Barriers for Male Students in Nursing Programs and investigated the prevalence and perceived importance of these barriers. The findings were published in the Journal of Nursing, page 46, in May 2004. It described the prevalence and perceived importance of barriers and to develop a tool for measuring the male friendliness in nursing programs. Its findings and recommendations formed the basis for the formulation of the Inventory of Male Friendliness in Nursing Programs (IMFNP).

Protection of study participants

All the participants in this research were protected as per the requirements in the research ethics requirements based on the Belmont Report. The respect of the participants was considered by treating them with autonomy. The research involved people who were to make own decisions whether to participate or not without any coercion. Adequate information had been provided to allow the participants to be involved in the research voluntarily through an involved consent.

The study utilized The beneficence principle. It first had approval by the American Assembly for Men in Nursing (AAMN) for its conduction. It had no physical or emotional harm to the participants. The aim of its conduction was for the general good to the participants, the relevant institutions and authorities for it focused on developing policies that would bring equality in the training of nurses as well as their practice in the society. The findings from the research were later used to formulate policy guidelines that are used up to date by nursing institutions to ensure equality in the recruitment of nursing candidates.

Justice was done to all participants thus enhancing their protection in the study. All the subjects  had equal treatment, exposed to similar questions and a similar method of data collection. It did not bestow any  burden upon a particular individual, and the results for the study benefitted all the participants equally.

Assessment of study tools

Upon the development of the survey’s data collection tool, it was compared with the American Assembly for Men in Nursing (AAMN) subsample and amendments done to make it in uniform with specifications. Findings from a pilot interview conducted involving ten nurses helped in the formulation of the final data collection tool.

Consideration of ethical issues

            The research considered ethical issues relating to human research. It was first approved by an ethics body in order to allow for its conduction. Each of the participants had an informed consent participation. Involvement in the research was voluntary, and no punishment was given to the people not willing or withdrew from participating in the study. The research never required the giving of information that could reveal participant’s identity. The information collected from the study was confidential and was used for the purposes of the study only. The research utilized questions that were not very sensitive to the participants’ way of life hence not affecting them emotionally. The research questions utilized were standa.............