Searching Databases
Searching Databases
Evidence-based practice (EBP) is founded on clinical inquiry. However, researchers need to conduct clinical inquiry using a framework known as PICOT (population, Intervention, comparison, outcome and time (Melnyk & Fineout-Overholt, 2019). The clinical area of interest or topic is the high rate of readmissions for heart failure patients over 65 years after their discharge in thirty days (Boyde et al., 2018). Based on this issue, the paper develops a PICT question to address issue by establishing interventions aimed at reducing the rate of admission. Consequently, the paper develops the PICOT question:
In heart failure patient (HF) above 65 years and discharged from health facilities (P), does multidisciplinary nurse-led education provision and team (I) compared to usual care (C) reduce the rate of readmission (O) within 30 days after their discharge?
Searching for evidence after formulation of PICOT question requires one to use a host of strategies and terms. In this case, the use of peer-reviewed articles is essential in generating sufficient evidence base to support the PICOT question. The terms used included “peer reviewed articles,” “heart failure,” “rate of readmission,” “within 30 days,” “nurse-led educational interventions,” “multidisciplinary team approaches,” and “patients aged over 65.”
The two search databases that I used include PubMed and CINAHL. Utilizing these databases, I entered the key terms in the search engine to generate studies that corresponded to them. The first attempt produced over 30,000 studies. However, I filtered the search based on data of publication, and excluded systematic reviews and meta-analyses (Melnyk & Fineout-Overholt, 2019). After using the search terms and other critical filters, the studies that met the criteria reduced to 20 articles. These were specific article that addressed the different interventions that can be used to tackle the issue.
One can enhance the vigor, specificity, and effectiveness of their database search by using in-built filters in the database. An example is filtering the search to only produce certain types of studies like randomized control trials (RCTs) (Seferovic et al., 2019). Further, the search also employed synonyms of search terms as well as repeating the searches to attain only relevant articles.
References
Boyde, M., Peters, R., New, N., Hwang, R., Ha, T., & Korczyk, D. (2018). Self-care educational
intervention to reduce hospitalizations in heart failure: a randomized controlled trial. European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing, 17(2), 178-185. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474515117727740
Melnyk, B. M., & Fineout-Overholt, E. (2019). Writing a successful grant proposal to fund
research and evidence-based practice implementation projects. & Ward, R. Editor, Evidence-based practice in nursing and healthcare, 654-680.
Seferovic, P. M., Ponikowski, P., Anker, S. D., Bauersachs, J., Chioncel, O., Cleland, J. G., … &
Coats, A. J. (2019). Clinical practice update on heart failure 2019: pharmacotherapy, procedures, devices and patient management. An expert consensus meeting report of the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology. European journal of heart failure, 21(10), 1169-1186. doi: 10.1002/ejhf.1531.
Hello everyone,
The clinical issue of interest to me is mental health issues among adolescents due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This subject interested me because having worked as a Psych/behavioral health nurse for over 2 years, I witnessed firsthand how the number of adolescent patients increased at our hospital. I worked at a 20-bed inpatient behavioral health/psych facility and within a matter of months after COVID, we were getting twice as many adolescent admission packets than adult admissions. In six months, the hospital went from 20 adolescents to a 50-adolescent inpatient facility.
I started my search using the Walden library resource. I started with the broad subject of mental health. I narrowed my search result to adding adolescents to the search criteria. I selected “peer-reviewed articles” and changed the years to include searches between 2016 and 2022. I also included COVID-19 in the search criteria as well. This narrowed the search result down to 495 articles which is a lot more manageable to go through rather than going through thousands of articles.
I found a great article on this topic titled “The impact of COVID-19 on adolescents’ mental health.” In this article, the author discusses that several studies show that emergency department visits for peds patients increased after the first lockdown. The author also talks about the underlying causes of pandemic-induced distress, with social isolation and loneliness due to social distancing being the main culprit in increased anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicidal ideation among this population.
I will continue to read through the list of articles on this subject matter and the COVID-19 timeframe of the last year will develop my PICOT question. I will also research how this pandemic over the last year has increased substance abuse among adolescents.
Thanks,
Ernest
I am interested in researching the various approaches to solving nurse staffing shortages within acute care facilities. My PICO question is as follows, the problem that I want to approach involves analyzing whether the intervention of obligatory long-term contracts is useful in improving staffing rates or if the employment of travel nurses address the staffing issue in acute care facilities.
I used PubMed database and CINAHL plus. While researching the topic with CINAHL plus database I originally searched “nursing shortage solutions in acute care,” which only results in one article. I then revised my search phrase to “nursing shortage solutions” and added the Boolean search phrase “and,” then added “acute care setting or hospital.” The revised search with this database resulted in 22 articles. I was then able to adjust the dates of articles with a publication date from 2016-2022, this reduced my search results to 3 articles.
Using the Pubmed database I searched the phrase “nurse staffing shortage solutions” and received 299 results. I added “and travel nurses” to the search which reduced my results to 20 resources. After adjusting the data my search yielded 8 articles, 3 articles would be useful in the research of my PICO question. For example, an article titled “Lived Travel Nurse and Permanent Staff Nurse Pandemic Work Experiences as Influencers of Motivation, Happiness, Stress, and Career Decisions: A Qualitative Study,” explores the research done that analyzes the experiences of travel nurses and staff nurses during the pandemic and their overall job satisfaction.
While some articles from my search effort proved to be somewhat useful, there were not enough resourced produced to answer my PICO questions. I believe that I will have use more general terms in my search to receive more results on my topic and then select appropriate resources. In addition, I will continue to use PubMed since is seems to have more articles pertaining to my topic of interest and find another database to replace CINAHL.
Davies, K. S. (2011). Formulating the evidence based practice question: A review of the frameworks Links to an external site. for LIS professionals. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, 6(2), 75–80.
Hansen, A., & Tuttas, C. (2022). Lived Travel Nurse and Permanent Staff Nurse Pandemic Work Experiences as Influencers of Motivation, Happiness, Stress, and Career Decisions: A Qualitative Study. Nursing administration quarterly, 46(3), 245–254. https://doi.org/10.1097/NAQ.0000000000000530Links to an external site.
Melnyk, B. M., & Fineout-Overholt, E. (2018). Evidence-based practice in nursing & healthcare: A guide to best practice (4th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Wolters Kluwer.