The relationship between theory, research and practices
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Being a curious individual i have come to identify that there are round nine essential of Baccalaureate Education for professional nursing practices (“American Association of Colleges of Nursing”, 2008). Some of the essential includes first understanding the liberal education under Baccalaureate nursing practices, then learning about the basic systematic and organization leadership for quality care and patient safety, and thirdly getting skill for applying evidence based practices (EBP). This course for professional nursing practices also include other courses such as information management and application of patient care technology, healthcare policy and regulation learning, inter-professional interaction/ collaboration and improvement of patient health courses there are also professionalism courses, generalist nursing practicing courses and clinical related training courses. As a training nurse I have successfully managed to complete three of the course and I already feel that I have gained a lot from this few courses. My most current course to complete is NUR3165 and it has a fully package of evidence based practices information that have significantly improved my nursing research capability as compare to before going through the course. Unlike before where I only had a rough idea of the relationship between theory, research and nursing practices I can now clearly understand the connection between these three concepts.
First, from this course I now identify the term theory as an explanative concept of certain phenomenon characterized by creative thinking and purposeful ideas that can be transformed into using knowledge in nursing practices. Additionally, it has become clearer to me that nursing practices is a multidimensional area that not only includes ethical practices, advocacy activities and delegation of care. I have learned that nursing practices also involve application of creative thinking by analyzing environmental phenomenon through use of evidence and development of theoretic ideas (Smith, 2018). I have also learned that without application of research in my nursing career it will be difficult to be creative enough or to adequately identify crucial opportunities that can help to improve my nursing practices. Moreover I have also identified that using research in nursing help in forming systematic investigations that have a high potential to give real facts and applicable solutions while providing nursing services. The general understanding that I earned from various discussion and case study provided during this course has enable me to understand the general and primary connection between this three concepts. In a simple and compact sum up I would say that research is part of nursing practices. To carry out a research a nurse needs to develop purposeful theory (involves creative thinking and develops the guide) that helps to identify the gap or question in the nursing practices. Having identified the theory that with fulfill a gap in nursing practices the need for research takes over to find applicable solutions for the gap. Therefore according to my understanding one cannot separate these three concepts because they rely on each other significantly.
During the course I also learned that to effectively apply these three concepts in clinical nursing practices there is a systematic evidence based practices process that I can apply to enhance overall value and quality of profession nursing. Using the six basic steps for evidence based practices I can know confidently form clinical theories and research question that help to focus on the patient, organization benefits and overall improvement of the nursing profession. Additionally, I also have the capability to collect reliable and valid data during my nursing research activities. This is the greatest achievement in my life and the knowledge I have gained from the course has significantly elevated my self-esteem and innovation capability in as far as my career is concern. Furthermore, I can now also confidently share evidences with my peers and other healthcare experts and involve patient interest in my nursing practices. I have also gained the skills that help me to adequately accept change and evaluate my decision in every step I take to conserve and protect participants’ rights while carrying out my research. All the researches that I will carry out in the future will involve PICOT questions that so that the result could have a horizontal solution to the nursing issues that I may come across.
Due to technological advancement there are multiple source of information found form different website in the internet and also from different hard copies such as books, magazines, newspapers, journals and business article. Being an individual how love to explore and remain updated I did identify that the possibility of getting bias information from this sources is very high. However, despite my worries on the risk associated with having bias information I did not have any ideas on how to evaluate credibility of the sources I would use for the research. Fortunately, after going through the NUR3165 course I have learnt and identified examples of credible source that always have reliable and update data adequate for research. Some of the resource that I can now recommend as the best includes scholarly reviewed articles that involve a panel of qualified expert in the areas of study, government website and agency manuals for procedure. I can also use bibliographical database and clinical practices guidelines in addition my workplace sector to extract information for my research (“American Association of Colleges of Nursing”, 2008). The examples I have mentioned above are just a few of the list of credible sources applicable in nursing research. Still, having identified the reliability and validity of literature database such as CINAHIL, PubMed, National guideline clearing house, psycINFO, Cochran database and MEDLINE I feel it is worth to include them in every research that there can be applicable.
In addition to effectively implementing EBP and sharing information with others I also feel that I can now evaluate and analyze the results of my research. For example through the course I have learned that using meta-analysis I can systematically assess current and older research articles to critically appraisal preciseness of the research results. Using the meta-analysis strategy I can also integrate the right factors such as peers perspective, patients’ preference, historical evidences and social impact that can influence accuracy and efficiency of the research problem (“American Association of Colleges of Nursing”, 2008). I also believe that meta-analysis strategy will help me to enhance research quality and help to get inclusive result for the researches that I will conduct after this course. Through the course I have learned how use hierarchical ranking that would help me to evaluate evidence and clarity level of the research results. The seven rating level that I can now comfortably use I my research practices to evaluate clinical evidence of every research include using nontraditional and randomized clinical trial as the highest level of evidence based practice (Milat & Li, 2017). The other level after this includes single/nonrandomized clinical trials (second level), systemic review correlation and observation study (third level), single correlational/ observational study (fourth level). The last three levels include systematic review of descriptive, physiological and qualitative studies (fifth level), single review of qualitative, descriptive and qualitative study (sixth level) and lastly researcher’s opinion and comment. Using this level I feel that I have the capability to analysis and judge the effectiveness, appropriateness and feasibility of evidence before implementing it.
Combining effective research strategies and assessment technic together I believe that it is possible to effectively use theories, conduct evidence based research and implement appropriate evidence in nursing practices. This would help to improve healthcare quality, enhance patient safety by eliminating errors and promote effective communication through sharing of evidences in a healthcare setting. Since I have also learned that it is possible to make mistakes I also look forward to apply the PDSA technique to develop a plan for testing changes, carrying out the actual test, identifying the consequences and making appropriate adjustment to the research and clinical practices.
References
American Association of Colleges of Nursing [AACN]. (2008). The essentials of baccalaureate education for professional nursing practice. Washington, DC: Author.
Milat, A. J., & Li, B. (2017). Narrative review of frameworks for translating research evidence into policy and practice. Public Health Res Pract, 27(1), e2711704.
Smith, L. (2018). The relationship among theory, research, and practice. Frameworks for Advanced Nursing Practice and Research. doi:10.1891/9780826133236.0003