Literature Review Skills: Critiquing Research In Nursing Practice

Literature Review Skills The nursing profession has a rich history of using research in practice. However, over the thirty years that I have been a nurse, I have seen a change in amount of evidence based nursing practice that has been implemented in the places where I have worked throughout my carrier. As more research is done in nursing practice, there are more and more applications of research findings that effect the way in which nurses perform the care that they provide for their patients in an effort to improve the quality of patient care. Throughout my nursing carrier, I encountered a research only by reading about it in articles published in nursing magazines. Many times, the information in the research articles were condensed, written …show more content…
I have always thought that if the study was published in a professional magazine or on a reliable website, I assumed that the information was credible and trustworthy. Working as a school nurse I am the only medical professional in the building. I do not have the luxury of asking a colleague for an opinion, advice, guidance, or information during a time of need. I rely on my research skills and my own professional experience. For that reason, critiquing research evidence – new skill that I acquired in this class – is the skill that will become the most helpful in my practice. I believe that being able to critically read a research article, assess, and comprehend it objectively will deepen my knowledge and thus improve the care I can provide to my patients/students. For example, as I practice and grow this skill, I now know that the validity of each study conducted must be addressed. I now know to consider questions like; Was the population studied an adequate representation of the population it is looking to address and was the population section clearly identified and defined? Were there any other studies referenced or footnoted and if so, are those studies reliable? And lastly, are the researchers or researching organization an unbiased third party and impartial to the results? I know that not everything on the internet is true. Learning the skill of critiquing is aiding me in the development of the skill to adequately question the reliability and accuracy of the information I use to make decisions in my practice. It is this direct link in improving my ability to care for my patients/students that the development of this skill is most helpful to my practice. Although critiquing may prove to be the most helpful in my practice, synthesizing will have a positive effect as