Your Experience & Weekly Research Articles

Describe your experience with locating and reading weekly research articles. Share an example of an article that has been useful and applicable to your practice. Share an example of an article (or information) that was not helpful. Provide rationale.

Submission Instructions:

• Your initial post should be at least 500 words, formatted and cited in current APA style with support from at least 2 academic sources. 

Respond to at least two of your peers by extending, refuting/correcting, or adding additional nuance to their posts.

Student # 1

Arronte George

NUR-416: Nursing Research & Evidence-Based Practice

St. Thomas University

Instructor: Lisbet Henriquez

September 14, 2022

Your Experience & Weekly Research Articles

Searching for articles has been a significant experience that has exposed me to the knowledge of how research has been rich in the field of psychiatric nursing. That is because at first, I assumed that it was a field that was not prioritized in research and not many articles were published regarding the area field. However, upon researching every week I have realized more articles are investigating various aspects or issues of psychiatric nursing than I could ever imagine. I have been using various databases for the search process. For instance, I have used the NCBI, PubMed, Ebsco, and Wiley Online Library, among other databases to aid in the search. One thing that I have discovered with the search is to e more specific on the search words used to ensure that the research articles found address the issue one wish to explore. The databases also provide the option of discovering more articles related to the one found.

Additionally, I have also found that many of the articles have almost similar findings when researching similar issues. For instance, all the articles I have reviewed so far address the issues or challenges faced by psychiatric nurses in their work environment. The findings in all the articles were similar. For instance, all the articles found that violence and assault was risk factor for psychiatric nurses. So far, I would say that all the articles provided useful information for my clinical practice. For instance, one of the articles I found useful for my clinical was an investigation by Shahrour et al. (2022). In this article, the researchers investigated how healthcare institutions could participate in reducing stress levels and violence among psychiatric nurses. This information is useful for my nursing practice because it provides a foundation that could be used by fellow psychiatric nurses to advocate for changes in the clinical practice.

The article suggested that health institutions should provide support services for psychiatric nurses (Shahrour et al., 2022). This is important information for my clinical practice because it informs of the changes that I could propose for organizational change. Also, helping psychiatric nurses cope with stress and violence in the workplace is important because it would reduce turnover rates and also improve interest in working in psychiatric wards.

Besides that, I also came across various articles that were not helpful for my clinical practice. However, this was not often based on the criteria I have adopted for the research of articles. For instance, I came across an article about a prospective study conducted by Doedens et al. (2021) that claimed that there were higher rates of seclusion of mental health patients when female nurses were on shift than when male nurses were on shift.  I would say that this information was not useful in my practice because I have witnessed that violence from mental health patients is not determined by the gender of a nurse. That is because every nurse is at risk of violence, either verbal or physical.

References

Doedens, P., Ter Riet, G., Vermeulen, J., Boyette, L. L., Latour, C., & de Haan, L. (2021). Influence of nursing staff characteristics on seclusion in acute mental health care-A prospective two-year follow-up study. Archives of Psychiatric Nursing, 35(5), 491–498. 

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apnu.2021.07.003
 (Links to an external site.)

Shahrour, G., Taha, I., Ali, A. M., & Alibrahim, M. (2022). The moderating role of social support on workplace violence and stress among psychiatric nurses. Nursing Forum. 

https://doi.org/10.1111/nuf.12792

Student # 2

Milaine Garcia

St. Thomas University

NUR 416 AP 2

Instructor Lisbet Henriquez

September 15, 2022

My Experience & Weekly Research Articles

         Research is an essential component of the healthcare industry, particularly the nursing profession. High-quality, evidence-based nursing care is founded on research. As a health insurance case manager, my job entails interacting with members and providers. I have to educate my members and help coordinate their care. My job is to provide the members with a smooth transition and assist in meeting their healthcare needs. To give the best care possible, I must stay current on the newest medical findings and recommendations. I continuously strive to gather data that will assist me to perform services more effectively in addition to being accurate. To stay current, I rely on research publications and nursing journals.

         My experience looking for research articles has been positive. I believe these assignments have helped me become a more informed nurse. In the beginning, it was difficult to find articles that relate to my practice and met the requirements set by STU. With time, I began to learn which databases were factual and accurate, and which keywords to utilize to facilitate my search. I now use Google Scholar, STU library database, and PubMed to locate the articles of interest. Since starting to use those sites, I have been able to locate articles more easily and efficiently. There are several guidelines I have set in place when looking for an article. These guidelines include the publication date, the setting in which the article was written, clinical importance, and how it will influence my role as a nurse. Since the healthcare field is constantly evolving, it is important that the articles selected are written no more than 5 years ago. This ensures the findings learned from the article are current and appropriate for use in my practice.

         Even though all the articles I have read while completing my assignments have contained at least one thing that has been beneficial to my practice, the article I chose for my first article summary has been the most beneficial.  This one discussed the sociodemographic and clinical factors that were associated with diabetes mellitus type 2 patients’ adherence to self-care activities (Portela et al., 2022). Since the population I work with has a high incidence of diabetes mellitus type 2, it is important for me to understand what makes them adhere the most to self-care activities. I learned from this article that individuals were less consistent with their diet, exercise, and blood glucose monitoring. I also learned that persons were particularly devoted to their foot care and medication regimens. This information benefits my practice since I now know which activities to focus my teachings on and emphasize their importance. I believe an article that has not been helpful is the one I chose for my article 3 summary. This article discusses the effectiveness of case management in blood pressure reduction (Mantovanil et al., 2021). Even though the results of the article demonstrated that case management has an effect on blood pressure reduction, I did not learn any new information that can be applied to my practice. Overall, the weekly article summaries have helped me develop my skills as a researcher and a nurse.

 
 
References

Mantovanil, M. D. F., Kalinke, L. P., Da Silva, N. T. M., Perez Arthur, J., Radovanovic, C. A. T., & Bortolato-Major, C. (2021, March 3). Effectiveness of nursing case management versus usual care for blood pressure control in adults with hypertension: A systematic review. Investigación Y Educación En Enfermería, 39(1). https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.iee.v39n1e04

Portela, R. D. A., Silva, J. R. S., Nunes, F. B. B. D. F., Lopes, M. L. H., Batista, R. F. L., & Silva, A. C. O. (2022). Diabetes mellitus type 2: Factors related to adherence to self-care. Revista Brasileira de Enfermagem, 75(4). 

https://doi.org/10.1590/0034-7167-2021-0260