This essay is going to examine the importance of evidence-based practise within a health care setting. It will then discuss the link between evidence based practise and qualitative research. A qualitative research article will then be reviewed on how the research for that study was carried out, and how reliable the evidence is in the article, by using the Thorax Hierarchy of Evidence (Thorax, 2004) Other pieces of evidence will then be discussed contradicting the article. The evidence will be found, by a clinical question being formulated through the PICO process (Pico, 2010).This question will then be entered into a nursing/ medical database that will bring up articles of research relating to keywords within the question.
Evidence based practise is the process, of which the improvents of medical procedures are carried out. Key points of the procedure are highlighted and adjustments are made with supporting evidence from research, and clinical expertise to back up the adjustments, in order to improve the standard of patient care.
Evidence based practise allows nurses to ensure that the care, that they are delivering is effective due to it being based on thorough research and clinical information. This allows the patient to have a better overall outcome of health, and a shorter period of treatment. Evidence based practise is also a good way of keeping nurses informed about the current care standards and procedures that may have changed.
Some of the ways evidence based practise can be used are:
Researching information about patient’s diagnostic if it is unfamiliar. This is so that nurses are able to explain to the patient about their condition if they ask any questions.
Creating a care plan, this could be because the nurse may not be totally sure about the care that the individual should be receiving in their circumstances, due to everyone being different.
Obtaining information on drugs, as they may be unfamiliar or the nurse is unsure why they have been prescribed for that patient. (en.bmj)
Increasingly more of the research that is being done for evidence based practise, finds the qualitative research method most appropriate and recognises the benefits that come of it (Fampra).
The article, “The role of peer communication in the socialization of adolescents’ pain experiences: a qualitative investigation” (Jill E Hatchette, Patrick J Mcgrath, Michael Murray and G Allen Finley [11/01/08]) investigates how teenagers express pain when being influenced verbally and non-verbally by peers. The article is going to be reviewed by using qualitative research, Screening Questions (Public Health Resource unit, 2006).
The research for the article was carried out by using the, focus groups qualitative research method. This is when researchers set out with a question, that they have not predicted the answer to yet, and examine groups of people from the same area, looking at their social norms and behaviour (FHI, 2010).
The qualitative research method is appropriate for this study, due to an advantage of this method being that it is able to provide detailed descriptions, of how people perceive and experience an issue, for example pain (FHI, 2010). It is also believed that social conditions can affect other types of research due to people’s consciousness in a social situation (book ref, an analysis of thinking and research about qualitative methods, potter, 1996). The article discusses other reasons for choosing the qualitative research method over others. For instance, the article suggests that there was no other research on the topic done at the time, therefore making it hard for a hypothesis to be created. Secondly the research done in the article is part of a bigger study on adolescences and pain, therefore the results can be correlated with other research done on the study.