All month I’ve been discussing the major questions you need to ask when critically appraising a research study. In this post, I’ll review the subquestions you need to ask when determining whether you can apply the results to your patient or patient population. Using Evidence to Make Clinical Decisions The
This month I’m talking about the questions to ask when critically appraising a research study for use in your evidence-based nursing practice. In this post, I’ll address the question of determining if the actual research findings/results are significant and meaningful – What are the Results? (AKA Are the Results Important?) The major
Critical appraisal skills are essential for the nurse, regardless of role or clinical expertise. I introduced you to the topic of critical appraisal in evidence-based practice (EBP) in the last blog post. I provided the purpose of critical appraisal and overviewed the steps of critical appraisal. In this post, I’ll
All undergraduate nursing students take a nursing theory/nursing philosophy course. Masters and doctoral students take advanced courses in theory. What’s the point? To use theory for nursing practice, of course! Many students wonder about the purpose of nursing theory — and just theory in general. Is it just an academic
One of the most common assignments in nursing school is to help students articulate their personal values and beliefs about their nursing career — in other words, writing a personal philosophy of nursing. In this post, I share some tips to help you consider how to uncover your true values
Assumptions, beliefs, and values are terminology used when describing the foundation of nursing theories. Theories are used to describe, explain, and predict nursing phenomena, that is, the nursing metaparadigm concepts. Nursing theory is the theorist’s worldview or personal perspective of how the nursing world works. Understanding the theorist’s assumptions, beliefs, and
All month I’ve been giving you tips on productivity and time management techniques. This post is all about taking notes. Whether you are in school or at work, there is probably many a time where you may need to take notes to capture the salient points of a lecture, a
A great habit to get into to make your juggling of school, work, and life go more smoothly, is to Schedule Everything! In quality improvement, the saying is, “What gets measured gets done.” In nursing, we say, “if it wasn’t documented, it wasn’t done.” Well, it’s the same idea is
Last week, I talked about daily, mainly electronic, distractions keeping you from focusing on your work. That post may have resonated with some of you – I know I struggle with turning off distractions and multitasking, too. I want to continue on the theme of obstacles to productivity and talk about
Email. Twitter. Blogs. Instagram. Facebook. Podcasts. TV. Video games. Text messages. Telephone calls. Google. YouTube. Smartphone apps. SnapChat. CandyCrush. “Surfing the Web.” What does each of these things have in common? They are distractions keeping you from doing the work you need to get done. Yes, distractions – while you
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