NUR504 Week 2 Collaborative Learning Community (CLC): Topic 4: EBP Literature Search/Appraisal of Evidence

This is a CLC Assignment.

You will be assigned to a CLC group by the instructor.

Within your group, follow the instructions provided in the CLC Assignment: Evidence-Based Practice Project (EBP).

Finalize the CLC Agreement.

CLC Assignment: Evidence-Based Project (EBP)

Group work has benefits and liabilities. Everyone assigned to a CLC is expected to equally participate in the work in terms of time and quality of effort. The assignment should be apportioned to make the best use of the strengths of individual team members. Some of you are natural leaders. Your strengths can be your greatest liabilities. No one wants to be bossed around no matter how skilled the boss. Honest communication is critical to effective group work. The best way to avoid conflict is to set very clear expectations. Then, if someone does not do what is expected, he or she can be referred to the original agreement rather than have the confrontation become personal.

At the end of the project, students will have an opportunity to evaluate each other. These evaluations will be taken into consideration when grading individuals within the group. The grade will be given for the project as compared to the rubric for evaluation. Depending on your evaluations, individual grades will be equal to or less than the overall grade. Course faculty are able to observe the process in the CLC forum. If your work takes place outside the forum, this information will be absent. Be certain, even if you communicate via e-mail, phone, or face-to-face, to record the communication in the CLC forum.

NOTE: The final course of your program will require you to develop and implement an EBP guideline. This is your opportunity to learn the process and perhaps even identify an area of interest. Your choice of a topic for the capstone course should be related to your area of specialty. Each course you take will provide you with the opportunity to investigate theory and empirical literature to identify the relevant evidence you will need to complete this project. The more effort you expend now to learn this process, the easier it will be for you to complete the program efficiently.

Topic 1:

Collaborative Learning Community: EBP Agreement

1) Check into your CLC group.

1. a) Describe your prior experience with evidence-based practice (EBP) includingparticipation in developing EBP guidelines or protocols for changing practice.

CLC Agreement

1) Review the CLC Agreement

1. a) Choose one member totransfer the CLC Agreement to the CLC forum, input the CLC’s responses for all sections of the Agreement, and submit the CLC Agreement.
2. b) Each member should provide their contact information on the CLC Agreement and decide what tasks in the Project Management Specifics section they will be responsible for.
3. c) In the CLC Forum, discuss and provide responses for each component of the CLC Agreement. The CLC Group Review Process will be completed at the end of your project.
4. d) Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of working in a team environment.

2) Record all communication in the CLC Forum.

3) Complete the CLC agreement, except for the CLC Group Review Process.

4) Submit the completed CLC Agreement to the instructor at the end of Topic 2.

Topic 2:

Collaborative Learning Community: EBP Agreement.

Brainstorm: Initiate conversation regarding potential topics of interest.

1) This should be a nursing related problem, that is, a problem related to nursing practice, advance practice, leadership, or education. .

2) Identify several topics of interest and have individual group members do a quick survey of the literature to be sure that there is evidence available.

3) In order to develop a guideline/protocol, you will need credible resources. Read pages 29-34 for guidance in identifying sources of evidence.

1. a) The course readings include all of the information needed to complete this project. Chapters 1 and 2 provided the necessary information regarding EBP and how to find evidence. Chapter 5 provides strategies for locating credible information. The sooner these chapters are read carefully, with the project in mind, the easier it will be.

4) Record all communication in the CLC Forum.

Topic 3:

Collaborative Learning Community: EBP Identification of Clinical Question

1) Refer to Figure 2.2 in the textbook for the model you will use to complete this project.

1. Note that you will not complete the entire process in this model, you will reach the step entitled,Pilot the change in practice.

2) As a group, finalize your choice of topic.

1. Review the literature regarding clinical problems presented in the previous topic in order to ensure that there is adequate evidence for your choice.
2. State your topic in the form of a problem statement and a foreground question.
3. The course readings include all of the information you need to complete this project.
4. Record all communication in the CLC Forum.

3) Choose one team member to submit the completed assignment and initial reference list to the instructor by the end of Topic4.

Topic 4: Collaborative Learning Community: EBP Literature Search/Appraisal of Evidence

1) UseFigure 2.1, Evidence hierarchy pyramid, inthe textbook as your guide for the levels of evidence in your reference list.

2) Locate case studies, relevant clinical articles written by experts, research articles,, evidence based guidelines and protocolsand theory that may guide the identification of appropriate solutions. This can include the articles reviewed from topic 3. Note, not all theories will have research that allows them to have a level assigned to them. This does not mean they are not good theories.

3) Appraise the evidence using the guidelines provided on pages 37-40 in the textbook.

1. Use these guidelines to discard references that are untrustworthy or irrelevant.
2. Use Box 2.2 to help with this decision-making process.

4) Use the following to organize the evidence by commonalities and/or contrary findings:

1. Chapter 5in the textbook provides information regarding how to synthesize the article findings.
2. Use the EBP Project Evaluation tool located in resources to consolidate and present the findings

5) Record all communication in the CLC Forum.

Topic 5:

Collaborative Learning Community: EBP Literature Search/Appraisal of Evidence

1) Continue with the articles used inTopic 4.

2) Complete the Synthesis Table for the evidence and variables for the guideline.

1. Limit the articles to no more than ten; two per student in the CLC group would be reasonable.
2. A true proposal would require a comprehensive review of the literature and inclusion of all relevant works.

3) Record all communications in the CLC Forum.

Topic 6:

Collaborative Learning Community: EBP Develop Clinical Guideline and Implementation Plan

1) Initiate work on developing a guideline or protocol based on your search of the literature.

2) Consider how to implement the intervention to test the protocol.

3) Identify potential barriers and describe strategies to gain cooperation from individuals who will be implementing the change.

4) Record all communication in the CLC Forum.

Topic 7:

Collaborative Learning Community: EBP Development Guidelines and Implementation Plan

1. Complete the protocol and write the plan to pilot the change in practice.
2. The Clinical Guidelines should include the problem statement, EBP question, literature review, along with all the tables used to arrive at the conclusion (can be appendices), the clinical protocol, and the implementation plan.. There is no specific template for this guideline/assignment.
3. The Implementation Plan for the protocol should include a timeline with criteria for evaluating the outcomes.
4. Use APA style headings for each section with subheadings as appropriate.
5. References should include all documents used for literature review along with sources used to guide the process.
6. Record all communication in the CLC Forum.
7. Submit the completed assignment to the instructor on the last day of Topic 7 and have one CLC member post the completed assignment all together in Topic 8 discussion forum.

MORE INFO 

EBP Literature Search/Appraisal of Evidence

Introduction

When conducting literature searches, it’s important to know how to use the PICO question. This question helps you narrow down your search by asking what type of study you want. For example: “Are there any studies that have evaluated whether cash transfers are more effective than food stamps?” If that’s what your question is about, then type “cash transfers” into the database window and click “Search.” Then evaluate each result based on its relevance to your PICO question; don’t just read everything!

Using the PICOT question, type your search into the database.

EBP is a team effort, so it takes time to learn how to do EBP. It also takes patience. To find resources in your area, type the PICOT question into your database:

• What are some articles/books/reports that have been written on this topic?

• How many people have been studied?

• What were their ages and genders?

Evaluate your search by retrieving the first 100 results.

Once you have retrieved the search results, it’s time to evaluate them. By this point, you should be familiar with how to evaluate literature searches and appraisals of evidence (in general). The following are some tips for evaluating your search:

• Check the titles and abstracts of all articles in order to determine whether they are relevant to your question. If a study isn’t relevant or important enough, don’t waste time reading it; move on!

• Look at each article individually as well as collectively based on its relevance score (see below). This can help you identify if any specific studies were missed during your initial search—or if there were too many irrelevant ones included overall but not enough high-quality ones among them.

• Consider how many studies are still missing from your list based on their relevance scores and compare this against those already found by clicking through one page at a time until all pages have been viewed through once again before moving onto another page in an effort at finding more relevant research pertaining specifically towards this particular topic area so that we’re sure our conclusion reflects just how much work needs done when trying figure out what exactly needs done next before making decisions involving certain topics such as these ones we’ve been discussing thus far today.”

Scan the results and determine whether they’re relevant to your PICO question.

After you’ve found a relevant article, click on it. You’ll want to read the abstract of the paper and see if there’s anything in that that can help explain your question—for example, if you’re looking for data about what happens when people move from rural areas to urban ones, then maybe an article about how traffic congestion affects commuters would be useful. If you find something interesting in the abstract (like “The average number of miles driven by people ages 18-29 increased by almost 9% between 2000 and 2010”), then go ahead and click through!

If nothing else seems relevant, try searching again with different terms or databases. Sometimes even Google Scholar has failed me—but don’t despair! Try changing your search terms until something clicks with what you’re trying to learn about (or use several databases at once).

If a study seems interesting, click on the title or author to see an abstract and determine whether it’s worth retrieving.

If a study seems interesting, click on the title or author to see an abstract and determine whether it’s worth retrieving. If you don’t find what you want, look through your own notes or email archives for other relevant research studies that might fit your criteria.

You can also save time by weeding out irrelevant research studies during a search by using EBP literature search tools like PubMed and Google Scholar Advanced Search (Search Tools).

Open multiple tabs so you can look at a number of studies quickly.

To make it easier to find the most relevant literature, open multiple tabs. This way, you can look at a number of studies quickly and easily save time by weeding out irrelevant research studies during your search.

If you think a study is useful, retrieve it in full text and save it to read later.

If you think a study is useful, retrieve it in full text and save it to read later.

• Save the full text of the paper. If possible, save your articles in their native format (e.g., PDF or HTML). This will make them easier for you to access later on your computer or mobile device when you need something from an accessible source!

• Save it to a folder that you can access easily later on: maybe just “Study” or “Evidence Bank” depending on how organized you keep things!

• Make sure that whatever format is being used by EBP system allows for searching quickly and easily – if not then consider using another system until one becomes available (we’ll talk more about this below).

Save all of your findings in a Word doc or Excel sheet that has your name, date, and search info.

When you have finished your literature search, save all of your findings in a Word doc or Excel sheet that has your name, date, and search info.

If you are using Google Drive to store the data from EBP searches:

• Save a copy of each document before moving on to Step 3. This is for future reference if something were to happen with these documents (i.e., lose them somehow).

You can save time by weeding out irrelevant research studies during a search.

One of the biggest time savers in EBP is weeding out irrelevant research studies during a search. If a study doesn’t contain information that’s relevant to your question, you can easily eliminate it from consideration without having to read the whole thing!

For example, if you want information on whether a particular treatment works better than another one and there’s no difference between them (or if there isn’t enough data), then this study won’t be helpful at all.

Conclusion

Sometimes, what we find is surprising. In the case of this literature search, I expected to find more studies supporting my belief that EBP was a good way to do an evidence review. But when I did a quick search for “evidence-based practice” on Pubmed, only one study came up! This finding is especially interesting because it shows that people who believe in EBP don’t necessarily have the same beliefs as those who don’t believe in it (and vice versa). It also suggests that both sides need more research!