Nursing research concepts and applications

¶ … Nursing, the field itself is integrated to the medical profession where it is commonly observed that the practitioners of this field help ill or sick personal usually under the guidance of a senior authority such as a professional medical doctor, nurses also perform many health awareness programs towards different societies. Here we will reply at some of the questions regarding research in this field.

Research on Nursing

The first question which will be addressed here is regarding the role of nurses in contributing towards nursing research. The overall research is a very crucial element for the evolution of the nursing field, the research produces data from nursing practices which assists in identifying the role of nurses. These researches also make the nurses do more informed and orderly precise decisions because every part of nursing is cleared and well learned through research, also one of the reasons is that the involvement of nurses in research reduces or completely avoids the expensive trial-an-error process as well as the not-so-safe interventions.

The involvement of nurses in research allows them to get an idea of many previously unknown nursing situations as well as to judge the requirement for intervention. It also assesses the favorable outcomes of decisions taken, gives advice for the betterment of patient and starts activities to boost the right behavior towards the patient.

Second question is on how nurses undertake research findings in considering their application to practice, the answer to that is that each finding adds to the overall practice and experience of the nurse which is also something that can bring efficiency to the field. As the field itself evolves, it must consider new and more effective ways to deal with practices that are according to new type of drugs and treatments available therefore this process is a must.

Third question is on how nurses maintain accurate documentation which can be used in nursing research. A nursing job also requires the nurses to deal with appropriate documentation which starts from the beginning from the early phase of routinely clinical rotation, nurses are supposed to not just look after their patients or other patients when needed but to properly and regularly document on the services which are provided by them.

There are many such textbooks written which properly gives reference to the documentation required in the nursing field at clinical level. The ability of a nurse to carry out appropriate and precise documentation serves many different and wide range of purposes such as it helps in keeping a thorough and continuous process of care. The arrival of every new shift of nurses requires them to have proper accountability of their patients, in this process the documentation also assists in looking after the situation in which legal options are used for many different cases.

The classes in a nursing school always remind them of the extreme need to follow a standard and appropriate documentation procedure. The nursing job is heavily dependent on communication skills; the method of properly documenting is indeed a huge skill in terms of proper and effective communication which a nurse should have. This process does not just help to gain complete understanding of the tasks in hand but also to regularly serve as a reminder of all the legal processes which guide appropriate nursing documentation.

The documentation characteristics which are spread all over the nursing field properly addresses the need to efficiently communicate through written methods. One of the main property of proper documentation is that the ability of a nurse to document legibly. This might look like an easy process to carry on but the fact is that many nurses, medical doctors or any other personnel associated with the nursing field do not follow a single standard of legibility.

Documentation in nursing field should also achieve the factor of being accurate and based on facts, by giving actual data, the process of care and appropriate channel of communication is maintained as this documentation can be used by the nurses in the future to reference on the actual change that has taken place on patient's vital signs over time.

Fourth question is that what should nurses do if nursing researches are not understood or their application is questionable, in that case the nurses should contact a higher authority for further guidance and should constrain themselves of taking any action whatsoever, because in this field a simple mistake by misunderstanding can result in a huge flaw which can even be worth a life. A higher authority should always be present when called upon by nurses regarding help in the subject matter of choice of the nurse.

Finally, let's have an example of a current nursing research (childhood obesity) in general practice and analyze the findings, this research was conducted in 2007, Obesity in children has come to huge proportions especially in the developed world, in the U.S. It is almost tripled in 35 years from 1970 to 2005, this rate is found higher in male as compared to females, this study suggests that some twenty five million American children are obese. This study also suggests that the main causes of obesity are many such as metabolic syndrome, hypertension, sleep disorders or liver related diseases. It is also because of some psychological effects like trauma, any sort of discrimination or depression which may force the child to eat more.