Archive for the ‘Implementing Research’ Category
Using research to bid for resources or influence change
Posted by admin in Implementing Research on June 16th, 2009
Health service managers have a responsibility to use the resources allocated to them to the best effect. When it has been identified that improvements can and should be made to existing practice, research evidence can be used in a variety of ways to influence change.
To set standards of good practice
If high standards have been achieved in other services, research evidence may have informed the type of intervention or
local and national context of research
Posted by admin in Implementing Research on June 16th, 2009
Using research evidence to make quality improvements in healthcare
The need to base healthcare on evidence that it has demonstrated both clinical and cost-effectiveness has never been greater. The impetus from practitioners has arisen from a growing realization, through questioning and reflection, that comparatively little is known about the effectiveness and efficiency of everyday practice. When evidence has been available it has been difficult to find, understand or use in terms of changing existing practice and persuading others to do so (Godlee 1998).
From the perspective of those who manage the NHS, evidence from epidemiological studies has highlighted wide variations in healthcare practice in both the process of service delivery and the outcomes of healthcare (DoH 1997). This also supports the notion that knowledge generated from healthcare research is not reaching practitioners or patients in a timely, systematic way. Read the rest of this entry »
Exploring and overcoming the barriers to research utilization
Posted by admin in Implementing Research on June 16th, 2009
Strengthening evidence-based care
There are many different ways of implementing research findings in the clinical setting. However, for nurses, the emphasis is on basing the decisions about the care they provide to patients on current research findings. The process of using research findings to guide clinical decision making is a major factor in providing evidence-based care. Evidence-based practice, or the process of providing evidence-based care, is defined as follows:
The conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence, based on systematic review of all available evidence – including patient-reported, clinician-observed and research derived evidence – in making and carrying out decisions about the care of individual patients. The best Read the rest of this entry »
Qualitative research
Posted by admin in Implementing Research on June 16th, 2009
Qualitative research is derived from different theoretical orientations to quantitative research but many people try to critique it using models usually applied to quantitative research. As a result, the research is often said to lack credibility. The following aims to highlight where differences in approach may be required. Read the rest of this entry »
Reading and understanding research reports
Posted by admin in Implementing Research on June 15th, 2009
Current changes in healthcare and nurse education have resulted in an ever-increasing number of research reports being published in both books and healthcare journals. The changes have also led to a different style of education for nurses. Within the academic system of education, students are encouraged not to accept research at face value, but to examine it critically before believing that it can be of use in practice. This means that nurses have to develop different skills to enable them to undertake this important function. Nurses must not assume that all research is good and that it can be used in their own sphere of practice without first checking its rigour and accuracy. Read the rest of this entry »
Surveys
Posted by admin in Implementing Research on June 15th, 2009
Definitions of survey research are many and varied (Moser and Kalton 1993), with some writers using the negative definition of ‘non-experimental’ (LoBiondo-Wood and Haber 1994; Polit and Hungler 1993; DePoy and Gitlin 1994). Survey research is perhaps best defined in terms of its purpose, this being primarily to measure the characteristics of a population, for example age, occupation, number of dependants, etc. The earliest surveys were censuses involving all members of the population – one of the first was the Doomsday survey. Possibly the most common types of survey today include General Household Surveys, Gallup polls and market research. Read the rest of this entry »
Phenomenology Ethnography
Posted by admin in Implementing Research on June 15th, 2009
Phenomenology
Phenomenological research is the study of everyday experience and an interpretation of the meaning of those experiences as described by the study participants (DePoy and Gitlin 1994). Phenomenology is both a philosophy and a research method that aims to capture the participants’ perspective of their ‘lived experiences’ in the belief that participants’ subjective experiences are the only reliable source of information. Information is usually obtained through tape-recorded interviews, which are transcribed verbatim, noting, for example, tone of voice, utterances and general demeanour. Central to phenomenological research is the need to reflect the views of the study participants, hence the tendency to feed back to the participants and ‘check out’ the respective interpretations. This process of returning to the participants serves to enhance the validity of the research findings, by checking whether the researchers’ interpretations of the data are a true reflection of participants’ reality.
Bousfield (1997) adopted a phenomenological approach to study clinical nurse specialists’ perceptions and experience of their roles. Seven participants were selected from an array of clinical directorates and specialties with differing responsibilities and stages of professional development. Data was collected using interviews (audio-taped) and the interviewees encouraged to express their thoughts and feelings as each part of their role was analysed. The researcher adopted a ‘helping status’ to facilitate responses and to help the participants to feel comfortable and relaxed (Keenan 1979). The taped interviews were transcribed, analysed and reanalysed and the emerging themes presented. To ensure that the views of the participants were presented as opposed to those of the researcher, Bousfield adopted a system of bracketing. Throughout the research process, Bousfield attempted to ‘bracket her own experiential knowledge to capture the empirical reality outside herself ’ (Swanson-Kauffman and Schonwald 1988). Put differently, the researcher attempted to bracket or suspend and ring-fence their perspective, preventing their beliefs, assumptions and preconceptions about the research topic from Read the rest of this entry »
Commonly used research methods
Posted by admin in Implementing Research on June 15th, 2009
Clinicians and nurse educationalists are required to produce evidence of research-based practice (Briggs 1972; DoH 1989; Mulhal 1995). This is further endorsed by the Code of Professional Conduct (UKCC 1992), which requires nurses and midwives to provide care that is research-based wherever possible. Research-based care is partly dependent on an appreciation of the methods used to study a given topic. Indeed, the blind application of research findings is at best inadequate and at worst contrary to the provision of quality care. Hence the need for practitioners and educationalists alike to become discerning consumers of research and research methods provides the rationale for this chapter. Read the rest of this entry »
What is nursing research?
Posted by admin in Implementing Research on June 15th, 2009
It is often suggested that the word ‘research’ is immediately met with resistance or even ‘a frisson of fear’ by nurses (Couchman and Dawson 1992). As a result, Robson (1999) suggests replacing the term research with ‘enquiry’, since he maintains that the two words can be used interchangeably as enquiry can simply be thought of as a way of solving problems. Taking this a step further, enquiry could be
scientific research and that many interventions are based on intelligent guesswork, clinical hunches and individual clinical skills, which continue despite little evidence to prove their effectiveness (Lewis 1993). Apply this to nursing and the story reads much the same. Read the rest of this entry »