How do you choose the type of research to conduct to address a research problem? What information should you keep in mind to ensure that your research process will adequately address your research problem?
Understanding the different types of research is a critical skill for the nurse researcher and nursing professional. As a current nursing professional, consider how understanding the different types of research may be conducive to achieving a particular mission in your health care setting, such as developing an intervention to address a quality or patient safety problem. This knowledge can also be a step toward assuming a nursing leadership position. As a critical component of your nursing toolkit, differentiating between the types of research is a fundamental step toward enacting change through the process of research.
For this Discussion, please review the following:
- Think about clinical practice problems you have seen in health care that compromise patient safety and health outcomes. For example, nursing-sensitive indicators reflect high-priority practice problems, which are described in the article by McIntyre, Cover, and Bonner (2019).
- Choose one of the clinical practice problems you have seen in your current or past job in a health care setting. Consider the possible causes of this problem and how you think it is, or was, affecting patient outcomes.
- Some patient safety problems are solved by making changes in clinical practice. For example, decreasing catheter-associated urinary tract infections in hospitalized patients often requires changes in clinical practice such as better adherence to preventive measures when catheters are inserted (e.g., use of disposable gloves, maintaining sterile fields, cleansing urethral meatus). For the problem you identified, what specific change in practice do you think is needed?
- When a practice change is implemented, it is important to verify whether or not the change has improved patient outcomes. One way to determine this is by conducting research. One of the first steps in the research process involves developing a research question that will later serve as the foundation for your study. Using information from Chapter 5 in your textbook and the handout on developing research questions, think about a research question and about the effectiveness of the practice change you proposed in improving patient outcomes.
- Another step in the research process involves identifying which type of research could be conducted to best answer your research question. In Chapter 5 of your textbook you will find a list of different types of research in the first column in Table 5.1 and Table 5.2. You can learn more about these different types of research in both Chapter 2 and the Glossary in your textbook. To locate even more information, you can also use an Internet search engine for more in-depth descriptions and examples. After learning more about the different types of research, think about which one you think is best for determining how well the clinical practice change you identified will improve patient outcomes.
Resources
Be sure to review the Learning Resources before completing this activity.
Click the weekly resources link to access the resources.
By Day 3
Post a description of how you would address the following:
Part 1: Patient Safety Problem
Describe the patient safety problem you identified, its causes, and the impact you think it has on patient outcomes. For this problem, describe a specific change in practice that could help improve patient outcomes.
Part 2: Research on Patient Safety Problem
Develop a research question that tests the effectiveness of your practice change in the improvement of one or more patient outcomes. What type of research would you use to answer this question? Describe the reasons why you think this is the best approach and why you would not use the other three types of research.
Note: Post a 3-paragraph (at least 350 words) response. Be sure to use evidenceLinks to an external site., in-text citationsLinks to an external site., and essay-levelLinks to an external site. writing skills, including the use of transitional materialLinks to an external site. and organizational framesLinks to an external site.. Use the writing resources and the Discussion Rubric to develop your post.
By Day 7
Read two or more of your colleagues’ postings from the Discussion question.
Respond to two or more of your colleagues with a comment that asks for clarification, provides support for, or contributes additional information.
Post a Discussion entry on 3 different days of the week. See the Rubric for more information.
Learning Resources
Required Readings
- Gray, J. R. & Grove, S. K. (2021). Burns and Grave’s the practice of nursing research: Appraisal, synthesis, and generation of evidence (9th ed.). Elsevier.
- Chapter 1, “Discovering the World of Nursing Research” (pp. 1–18)
- Chapter 2, “Evolution of Research in Building Evidence-Based Nursing Practice” (pp. 19–45)
- Chapter 5, “Research Problem and Purpose” (pp. 103–128)
- Chapter 6, “Objectives, Questions, and Study Variables” (pp. 129–151)
- McIntyre, D., Coyer, F., & Bonner, A. (2019). Identifying nurse sensitive indicators specifics to haemodialysis nursing: A delphi approachLinks to an external site.. Collegian, 27(1), 75–81. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.colegn.2019.06.003
- Document: Developing a Good Research Question in Nursing (PDF)Download Developing a Good Research Question in Nursing (PDF)
Writing Resources
Scholarly writing is a critical component of nursing academics. Walden University provides resources to support scholarly writing such as the CON Writing Template, Grammarly, access to the Walden Writing Center editing services, and many other tools for success.
Access these supportive resources for successful writing in the Writing Resources link from the Start Here module.
