Critically Appraising Evidence
The senior nurses request to only appraise the articles that discuss the use of alcohol-impregnated caps is misguided and should be resisted. First of all, it needs to be pointed out that a conflict of interest might be found in the AACN conference luncheon where the study sponsored by the company selling the alcohol impregnated caps was presented. Researchers need to consider who or what organization funds research and why that matters (Ioannidis, 2018). And as Bakhit et al. (2021) show, researchers need to be aware that funded research can be promoted for the purpose of facilitating sales of a product to the exclusion of other evidence-based practices that are just as effective.
From a philosophical and ethical perspective, however, the evidence-based practitioner has a responsibility to appraise articles that go beyond a single interventionand the reason...
To focus only on one intervention is to say that essentially this is the only intervention that matters. It is akin to someone arguing that there is only one way to treat Covid and that is through the Pfizer vaccineafter all, Pfizer funded several studies that prove the vaccine works. Other health care workers, doctors, and researchers could point to numerous other interventions that are just as effective depending on the populationand they are right to do so, because...
…multiple studies, looking at the populations used in the studies, looking at who funded the studies, and so on. Researchers cannot, however, be biased in their researchand they should avoid confirmation bias, unconscious bias, and any other bias that might affect how they do their research (Page et al., 2019).
The researcher is there to present factsnot to promote a pre-determined formula. The researcher is there to report on what others have shown in their studiesnot to show what a single organization wants everyone to think. The researcher is there for the people who need carenot for the companies that seek to profit from that care. The researcher is there to communicate the evidence so that evidence-based…
