Ch. 5 Research

• Literature review


  A critical component of the research process that provides an in-depth analysis of recently published research findings relevant to the study being considered. The review informs the research question and guides development of the research plan.
• Rationale for the literature review

  • Adds credence to the importance of the topic
  • Provides studies that can be replicated
  • Locates instruments that have already been tested
  • Reveals potential theoretical frameworks
  • Establishes the basis for the subject under study
  • Enhances the body of knowledge regarding a specific issue
• Too much or too little literature

  • A paucity of literature may indicate a significant gap in clinical knowledge
  • A large amount of literature may point to a clinical guideline rather than a research study
• Types of literature used in the review


  • Primary sources
  • Secondary sources
  • Theoretical literature
  • Empirical literature
  • Seminal works
• Evidence pyramid

  • Systems - smallest quantity
  • Summaries
  • Synopses of syntheses
  • Syntheses
  • Synopses of studies
  • Studies - largest quantity
• Steps of the search strategy

  1. Identify the research problem and question

  2. Select the resources to search

  3. Identify inclusion and exclusion criteria

  4. Build the search strategy

  5. Screen the initial list and organize

  6. Retrieve full text

  7. Summarize relevant articles

  8. Critically appraise the study quality

  9. Synthesize key findings
• Literature search for research

  • Provides background and context
  • Incorporates a theoretical framework
  • Specific to a single research question
• Literature search for practice


  • Focused on a clinical question limited in time frame
  • Focuses on application of research to practice
  • Specific to a clinical question
  • From works in peer-reviewed journals
  • Critical appraisal of single studies and aggregate research reports
• Appropriate resources for the literature search


  • Electronic databases
  • Books
  • Dissertations
  • Websites
  • Journals
• Criteria for critically appraising the literature review


  • Relies primarily on studies within 5 years
  • Peer reviewed
  • Relationship to the research problem is clear
  • Review can be linked directly and indirectly to the research question
  • Theoretical framework identified
  • Authors use primary sources
  • Studies are critically examined
  • Results are reported without bias
  • Review includes studies with and without significant findings
  • Review is organized and logically unfolds
• Information literacy for nurses

  • Identify question or problem clearly
  • Use databases, websites, and other reliable sources
  • Create effective search strategies
  • Think critically to analyze and solve problems
  • Computer literacy
  • Integrate literature into practice
• Tips for building literature review skills

  • Involve a health sciences librarian early in the process
  • Go from general to specific in the search
  • Select references that are the most relevant
  • Resist the urge to look only at full text
  • Use a broad range of sources
  • Rely on primary sources
• The literature review can support research or practice
• Health information is massive–information literacy is a must
• Work closely with a health sciences librarian
• Plan search strategies and critically appraise evidence using standards
• Altmetrics


  The creation and study of new metrics based on the Social WEB for analyzing and informing scholarship
• Bibliometrics


  The study of publication patterns
• Boolean operators


  The words AND, OR, and NOT, which are used to join or exclude search terms
• Cited reference search


  A search that finds articles that are cited by another article
• Empirical literature


  Published works that demonstrate how theories apply to individual behavior or observed events
• Evidence pyramid


  A pyramid diagram illustrating evidence-based information that depicts the potential quality of information, the amount available, and the amount of searching required to find evidence
• 1. index


  An indicator of a researcher's lifetime impact in his or her field
• Information literacy


  The competencies necessary to access, retrieve, and analyze research evidence for application to nursing practice
• Journal impact factor


  A way to measure the visibility of research by calculating a ratio of current citations of the journal to all citations in the same time period
• Levels of evidence


  A scale that provides the user with a quick way to assess the quality of the study design and, therefore, the strength of the study conclusions
• Open access


  Information that is freely available online with few or no copyright restrictions
• Peer review


  The process of subjecting research to the appraisal of a neutral third party. Common processes of peer review include selecting research for conferences and evaluating research manuscripts for publication
• Primary sources


  Reports of original research authored by the researcher and published in a scholarly source such as a peer-reviewed research journal or scholarly book
• Scholarly


  Concerned with or relating to academic study or research
• Search concepts


  Major ideas or themes in a research question
• Search strategy


  The identification of search concepts and terms and the way they are combined that will be used to search for resources for the literature review
• Search terms


  Words or phrases that describe each search concept used to conduct the literature search. They may include variables in the research question, characteristics of the population of interest, or the theoretical framework of the research problem
• Secondary sources


  Comments and summaries of multiple research studies on one topic such as systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and meta-syntheses, which are based on the secondary author's interpretation of the primary work
• Seminal work


  A classic work of research literature that is more than 5 years old and is marked by its uniqueness and contribution to professional knowledge
• Subject headings


  Fixed "official" keywords used by many databases to describe major concepts and assigned by indexers to bibliographic records
• Systematic review


  A highly structured and controlled search of the available literature that minimizes the potential for bias and produces a practice recommendation as an outcome
• Theoretical literature


  Published conceptual models, frameworks, and theories that provide a basis for the researcher's belief system and for ways of thinking about the problem