Skip to Main Content

Nursing: Research - Evidence Based

Other Course Guides on Research

What is Evidence Based Practice?

What is Evidence-Based Practice?

Evidence based practice is the integration of clinical expertise, patient values, and the best research evidence into the decision making process for patient care.

Clinical expertise refers to the clinician's cumulated experience, education and clinical skills.

The patient brings to the encounter his or her own personal and unique concerns, expectations, and values.

The best evidence is usually found in clinically relevant research that has been conducted using sound methodology. (Sackett, 2000)

© North Metropolitan TAFE 2019        The higher up the pyramid you go the more rigorous the study

Use Boolean Operators

• Search for more information from our Library Databases / Online Resources. Consider database search tips such as truncation, wildcards, phrase searching or proximity searching to enhance your search. Combine your terms with three Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) to create your search strategy.

How to use Proquest

eBooks

Levels of Evidence

Websites

RESEARCH - EVIDENCE BASED PRACTICE

When using the internet to supplement information you have already found, the quality of web sites vary and each must be evaluated according to criteria such as:

Authorship - what are the credentials of the author?
Origin - who hosts the site - university, government department, commercial enterprise?
Reliability - is the web site reliable?
Currency - when was the web site last updated?
Accuracy - does the author cite the sources used?

ALIA - Health Libraries Australia

ALIA- Health Libraries Australia -  Australian National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards (NSQHS)
Live Literature Searches

1) Health Literacy 

2) Shared decision-making 

3) Infection prevention 

4) Wound management 

5) Medication safety 

6) Delirium 

7) Falls prevention 

8) Pressure injuies 

9) Malnutrition 

10) Clinical handover 

11) Blood management 

12) Recognising and responding to acute deterioration

 

Looking for evidence to support best practice in line with the Australian National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards?

These automatic PubMed searches – focussed on the hospital setting – are available in four categories:

1) Last 5 Years    2) Broad    3) Broad limited to Australia    4) Broad limited to Review

Standards

Statistics

Online Videos

Cochrane Library Research Tips

About  Cochrane Library

"As the name suggests, The Cochrane Library is a collection of resources that can be used as a tool to help clinicians and consumers make decisions about appropriate and effective health care. The information is presented in the form of systematic reviews (also referred to as Cochrane reviews). These reviews are the most rigorous in the world, and provide the foundations for continuous improvement in the quality of health care. Entry to the Library is available via the Cochrane Library." [copied from website]

APA reference
The Department of Health and Aged Care. (n.d.). About the Cochrane Library. https://www.health.gov.au/contacts/cochrane-library

Funding Arrangements

"Australia is one of the first developed countries to negotiate a national subscription to The Cochrane Library, giving all Australians access to the library from their home computer, or any other terminal with Internet access in Australia, free of charge. The Australian Government has funded this national subscription in an effort to provide Australians with the best and latest evidence to inform their health care choices." [Copied from websie]

Books

Research Helpsheet

TedTalk2

Every day there are news reports of new health advice, but how can you know if they're right? Doctor and epidemiologist Ben Goldacre shows us, at high speed, the ways evidence can be distorted, from the blindingly obvious nutrition claims to the very subtle tricks of the pharmaceutical industry.

Well worth watching

Share Link :

https://youtu.be/h4MhbkWJzKk?si=0QLNqqHem4l55BOX

 

2023 Nursing Research Brief Notes

Falls - Search Terms & Strategies

Fall and Slip

Slips and Falls

Falls

Falling

"Accidental Fall" OR "Accidental Falls"

"fall prevention"

fall* AND "fall* prevention"

"Fall Risk Prevention"

"Fall Risk" AND Prevention

Online Videos

Pain - Search Terms & Strategies

  1. Pain Education
  2. Pain Neuroscience
  3. Pain Neuroscience education
  4. Neurophysiology education
  5. Therapeutics Neuroscience Education
  6. Chronic Pain
  7. Osteoarthritis
  8. Lower back pain
  9. Fibromyalgia
  10. Polymyalgia
  11. MH Chronic Pain
  12. MH Osteoarthritis
  13. 1 AND 6 AND 7
  14. 1 AND 6 OR 8 AND 7
  15. 2 AND 7
  16. 3 AND 7 OR 9
  17. 4 AND 7
  18. 5 AND 7
  • MH = Medical Topic Headings, TX = Words
  • Cochrane Library mesh heading search
  1. Massage
  2. Neuroscience
  3. Pain
  4. facial neuralgia
  5. Myofacial Pain Syndromes
  6. Neuralgias
  7. Syndromes
  8. Neck ache
  9. Neck pain

Pressure Injuries - Search Terms & Strategies

"Pressure Injury" OR "Pressure ulcer"

Ulcer OR Ulcers

Decubitus

"Decubitus Ulcers"

"Pressure Ulcers"

Bedsore OR "Bed Sore" OR Bedsores OR "Bed Sores"

Sore OR Sores

"Pressure Sore" OR "Pressure Sores"

Skin and "Connective Tissue Diseases"

"Skin Diseases"

"Skin Ulcer"

"Buruli Ulcer"

"Leg Ulcer"

"Pyoderma Gangrenosum"

PICO

PICO – is a process to frame a question to answer 
 
Time spent doing this will save you hours of searching!
Patient or Population
Intervention or Indicator
Comparison or Control
Outcome
 
Why PICO?
To get a concise question
To identify the information you will need to answer your question
To change the question into searchable terms
To develop and refine your search approach
 
Example:
In infants with fever (Patient or Population)
how does paracetamol (Intervention or Indicator)
compare with ibuprofen (Comparison or Control)
effect levels of fever (Outcome)
 
The question to research will be “In infants with fever how does paracetamol compare with ibuprofen effect levels of fever?
 
You may need to change the PICO order to make the question flow.
 
Think alternative keywords when searching e.g. Infants = babies, toddlers, newborns. Fever = temperature. Compare = equate, relate.
 
Examples

Writing for TAFE

  1. Demonstrate the knowledge criteria from the units. 

This is usually a short answer assessment,  however some academic areas will embed the knowledge component in with the practical application of the skills; students need to show they know something by applying this knowledge whilst completing a relevant task.

TAFE lecturers assess student’s knowledge by giving students the opportunity to show they know how and why they would apply that knowledge. This can happen via questioning during the practical component.

Auditors prefer knowledge to be assessed before the practical is given as some knowledge is safety related or procedure related, and employees need to know these before they act.

(Auditors do not like multiple choice assessments as they don’t take a lot of skill to write, and they still provide an opportunity for the student to guess rather than demonstrate their knowledge).

  1. Demonstrate the skills components of the units. 

This can happen in the workplace or a simulated environment, where the students are given a task or scenario, and then demonstrate the skills.

Assessors will use an observation checklist ticking off behaviours and skills they have seen demonstrated and making notes about their observations.

Some practical assessments have a written component, if the unit includes writing as a skill, assessors may get students to write how they would do something before they proceed with a physical demonstration.

Regardless all units have skills that must be physically observed.