With this research essay, I realized what it meant to use evidence-based practice in practice. It does not mean just looking at a research study and using that to influence practice. There is a lot more that goes into using evidence based practice. In order for evidence based practice to be used in practice, there is a lot of work that must be done prior to it. The research studies must be verified as reliable and there should be at least 3 articles to back up the hypothesis. I feel that through this process, I learned how to be a leader in research, while also working collaboratively with a team. Through working with a team, I will move forward working with individuals who are motivated and passionate about the research that they are performing. Moving forward, I will appreciate and understand the value of evidence based practice significantly more than I did before. I am aware of how important it is in order to make change for the better. I will bring the skills learned during this research with me as I progress in my nursing career. I am excited that I have shifted to more of an evidence based mindset in terms of nursing because it has already opened my eyes to the importance of research and allows me to care for my patients the best way possible.
Author: esimpson3 (Page 4 of 8)
COVID-19 began as an unknown form of pneumonia that began in Wuhan, China. We knew that this disease was deadly due to statistics that occurred in China and other countries; however, nobody really knew how this terrible disease was going to impact the United States. It has affected our economy, social lives, livelihood, food systems, agriculture, mental health and most importantly our health care. Individually, the pandemic has hit people in multiple different ways. It is important to acknowledge how it has affected us and how it has helped us learn about ourselves and the future.
With the onset of the pandemic, I went from living at school being able to hangout with my friends whenever I wanted to living at home with my mom, dad, and sister, unable to see anyone besides them. During that time, I began to self-reflect and realized that I had a responsibility as a future nurse. Although nursing can be portrayed as this glamorous career, there is a daunting side to nursing as well, especially during times like this. Nurses go in to work with uncertainty of how many of their patients could die today. It can be overwhelming thinking of the numbers of lives that could be put into my hands. However, I have realized that it is my job to advocate for these patients and care for them as if they are family with compassion. I did not want to sit around and do nothing; I felt like I had to do something to help the front-line workers. I decided to spend my summer working as a nursing assistant at a local rehab hospital. I really enjoyed being able to be the reason that some of these patients smile. With that being said, it would also break my heart seeing how depressed some of my patients were. Some of them had gone months without seeing their families or even just hugging someone. It became physically and emotionally draining trying to stay positive for my patients. I realized that I needed to focus on myself during my days off to adequately care for my patients. In seeing how many nurses suffered from “burnout” after the spikes in COVID cases, it is evident how important self-care and wellness is in the health care field. This is something that I will take with me throughout my nursing career. The pandemic has taught me what it means to be a nurse to great extents. I am honored to be entering a career that are the superheroes of this pandemic.
As a nursing student, the COVID-19 pandemic has greatly affected my education. Online school became the new reality which is difficult in nursing school as is it a hands-on major. It has brought about new ways to gain clinical experience including virtual simulations and different observation days. This restricted learning opportunities for myself and my peers. Clinical experience is where patient care is taught and where the application of material we learn in lecture is put to the test. Luckily, Maine Medical Center has allowed students back to their facilities this semester and I feel prepared entering my senior year of nursing school. I have learned the basics of patient care and how to use my therapeutic communication when interacting with patients, while also observing medical management of certain diseases. I am not taking any of this clinical exposure for granted and am looking forward to gaining more experience during my senior year.
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about multiple public health debates in which highlight the leadership role of nurses and altered education provided to nursing students. While education for nursing students has focused on providing acute care in hospital settings, it is now evident that health outcomes at a population level should be incorporated. Additionally, an emphasis on how to manage a pandemic should be included in education of both current and future nurses. This should encompass how to manage both patient care and self-care. Nursing schools primarily focus on the role of nurses in a hospital-based environment. The pandemic showed me the variety of settings that nurses could work in. Public health nurses working in communities are needed more than ever right now. For example, a quick adoption of telehealth technology was necessary to serve patients safely. These nurses can care for patients from the comfort of their own home. Professionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has given me a different perspective on a nurses’ scope of practice and the variety of settings that they may work in.
The pandemic has impacted the future wellness needs in our communities. First, and most importantly, mental health counseling will most likely be more accessible to those who need it. Quarantining and the lack of social interaction can increase severity of symptoms of depression and other mental illness. Additionally, after over a year of social distancing from others, overall wellness may be permanently altered. It has revealed that taking care of yourself and taking control of your own health is extremely critical. Post-pandemic wellness will be more focused on the idea of “self” where self-reflection and actualization are key. Health and fitness on a virtual scale has become the new normal and even after restrictions have loosened up, it is still continuing to be popular. Many individuals have adapted new ways to achieve their idea of wellness with new ways of doing things along with new hobbies.
With regards to community health, nurses get the chance to play more of a leadership role. The pandemic taught us that proper sanitation can help decrease the spread of contagious diseases such as COVID-19. I foresee there will be added nurses hired in schools to educate students about proper hand hygiene. Additionally, I think we will need nurses specifically for the COVID-19 vaccinations and information about COVID. This will help to get vaccinations to the public more quickly and provide information to those who have questions about it. Telehealth will become a more common form of medical care. Overall, COVID-19 will provide an increased number of jobs for nurses and give them the recognition that they deserve.
Therapeutic communication is the foundation of any successful interview with an individual suffering with mental illness. With this case, therapeutic communication would help to potentially get down to the root of the client’s issues and figure out why he is feeling the way that he is. During assessment, therapeutic communication helped to gain as much information as possible. The individuals who performed the assessment did a great job with asking open ended questions. Throughout each interview, the student’s responses got more therapeutic over time. Rather than not giving much of a response when a client answered a question, they responded by showing acknowledgement and understanding of what they are going through. This tended to create the trusting patient-nurse relationship. Additionally, frequent follow questions to an unclear response helped to gain a significant amount of information from this client. Throughout the assessment, the students used great therapeutic communication to develop rapport with the patient and to get as much information out of the conversation as possible. Using therapeutic communication as an intervention itself was essential during the interview with Mr. Riley. His main issue is the guilt that he is experiencing around his symptoms of depression. Therapeutic communication is important because it will help to allow the patient to be heard. Specifically, in Mr. Riley’s case, he expressed how he felt a isolated. In that moment, the students acted as support system but justifying the reasons for some of his symptoms and giving recommendations on how to better himself. Having someone actively listen to how the patient is feeling is important in recovery because it allows them to feel heard.
The students in this interview had multiple instances where they used therapeutic communication. Specifically, when Mr. Riley expressed his feelings of guilt, one of the student responded with something along the lines of him not being alone with that guilt and that it is a common symptom of depression. They asked about what could be triggering the guilt and gave him ways to help with it. The students used open ended questions such as, “What would a normal day look like? What do you mean getting back to normal? Tell me more about how it makes you feel.” Multiple times, the students would used interpretations and reflecting statement. This technique was used specifically when the student restated and summarized the patient’s feelings of guilt. She began the restating with, “From what your saying it seems…” Overall, this group did a great job with therapeutic communication throughout their interview and it got better as the interview went on.
After finishing the ethical conduct of research assignments and watching “Miss Ever’s Boys”, I feel that I understand the role of nurses in ethics a bit better. The movie really provided me with a good understanding of the infamous “Tuskegee Study” and how it helped evolve ethical principles. Nurse Eunice Evers was invited to work with doctors in a study to treat syphillis patients in Alabama. The study’s participants consisted of poor black men. It ended up turning into a twisted experiment where the patient’s are not even receiving treatment and are unaware of it. They are refused the right to get a Penicillin shot which was proven to be effective in treating syphillis during the duration of the study. Nurse Ever’s broke the nursing Code of Conduct by changing the study from the initial agreement without the participant’s knowledge and not offering a way out. This study ended with multiple deaths of participants which could have been prevented if Nurse Ever’s spoke up about what the study was actually doing. With that being said, nurses have an extremely important role in research studies because they have a responsibility to make sure that the patients are informed of all aspects of the study. It is important that we understand how ethical principles have evolved over time and why they have changed. With all the ethical practice and watching “Miss Ever’s Boys”, I now understand why ethics is so essential in nursing research and how it can affect our patients’. It is something that I will keep in mind when participating in research studies and treating patients as a future nurse.
Nurses play a role in ethics regarding evidence implementation and generation. I assume that their role is to maintain all principle of ethics during research studies. They would do this by keeping all participants information confidential and use ethical resources when performing studies. They must maintain an ethical mind set by separating right from wrong behavior in terms of the code of ethics. It is important that nurses are familiar with their Code of Ethics before beginning any research. Additionally, patient centered care should be a priority when you are a nurse. With the being said, the nurse should behave in a professional way to maintain ethical decision making.
Through evidence appraisal and synthesis, I was able to evaluate my study with a deeper look. The article investigated whether a meconium alcohol metabolite (ethyl glucuronide, EtG) was associated with cognitive development, ADHD-related behavior and neurophysiological markers of attention and executive control of children at primary-school age. Evidence from the study supported our PICOT question that prenatal alcohol consumptions will have an effect on cognitive function of school aged children. Findings included the groups with higher EtG levels has lower IQ scores than the other groups and a positive correlation between higher EtG levels and ADHD related behaviors. The evidence from this study supports my assumptions that I had when beginning this research. This article and its findings can be used in my future nursing practice. Although, I am unsure as to what specialty of nursing that I would like to go in, I do have interest in labor and delivery. With this information, I can provide evidence-based education to my patients regarding alcohol consumption during pregnancy. Having evidence to back up my education would help to show reliability and establish a trusting relationship with the patient.
My group members and I all arrived to the same conclusions with our articles that support the idea the prenatal alcohol consumptions will have an effect on cognitive function of school aged children. The collaboration process during this section was a bit rusty. My group consists of 5 people and only 4 of us were able to find articles that were approved use during this paper. To make the work more even, the group member without an article offered to help if needed. There was a miscommunication among the individual without the article and an individual whom she was helping with their appraisal which caused the critical appraisal for that article to not be submitted. We figured this out after the submission of the annotated bibliography. This was a careless error that was then smoothed over. It is definitely a wake up call to triple check everything and make a collaborative game plan from here on out so that something like this will not happen.
Since developing a PICOT question, my team and I have been smooth sailing. We agreed on a topic that we were all interest in. That topic is the effects of maternal alcohol consumption on learning disabilities in school aged children. As we began to look for articles, we had trouble finding them as out PICOT was a bit too broad. After discussing with each other and bouncing ideas off of our professor we decided to change our PICOT a bit, with it being more broad. Our new PICOT focused on the effects that prenatal alcohol consumption has on cognitive abilities in school aged children. With this slight change in our PICOT, my group has a lot more success in finding articles that were relevant to our research. Working together on this process and tackling the challenges together has helped us get a grasp of what we need to do for this paper. We have been dividing the work evenly and trusting each other. It is important that we keep an open line of communication with the whole group. With that being said, my group has created a group message text that we will use to talk about what we will each for the assignments. We will even sometimes do a group Facetime call or Zoom to talk about the content of the assignments to compare and discuss. I am lucky to be working with group and excited to get into the bulk of this project!
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course explores the philosophical and theoretical underpinnings that inform
nursing knowledge relevant to the role of the baccalaureate-prepared nurse. Emphasis is placed on use of the
best available evidence, clinical expertise, and patient preferences to improve healthcare quality.
COURSE OBJECTIVES: At the completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Apply knowledge from the art and science of nursing, the natural/behavioral sciences and humanities to
nursing education, practice and research. - Utilize theoretical frameworks as a basis for nursing and interprofessional practice, research, and
education. - Examine the assumptions and conceptual frameworks inherent in nursing’s core values that influence
the quality of health care for individuals and families. - Demonstrate knowledge and skill in utilizing research evidence for nursing practice.
- Recognize the important leadership contributions that each nurse can make to implement EBP to
promote quality and safety. - Explore the use of theory and evidence based knowledge to guide a systematic approach to nursing care.
- Analyze and evaluate selected nursing theories for translation into practice, research and nursing
education.
I see my team being able to collaborate to form an exceptional final paper. When beginning to choose a topic, I think it will take some time for each of us to research topics that could interest us. Once, we each find a couple of topics that we want to learn more about, we will then bounce the ideas off each other. The key to agreeing on a topic is open mindedness of all team members. This will have to carry over throughout the whole paper. Everyone should be open to hearing the ideas of others, while also being accountable for their assigned part.
The communication plan will begin right from the start. This communication is essential to build a good foundation for our paper. We will assign different parts of the paper to each team member. Although we will all have our own parts, we will be able to work as a team if someone needs help. I think that within the group we should have due dates for when we want certain parts done yet. It is also essential that we look at the sections of our other group members and give some feedback.
The plan for conflict management should simply be just addressing the situation. It should be addressed earlier rather than later so that it does not get worse and affect our grade. If we face the situation head on and go directly to the individual who is not putting in their best effort, then it will be easier to solve. Being able to address this situation both efficiently and respectfully, then the team is more apt to have a successful paper.
Although I do not anticipate any barriers with my team, one that could occur would be people of the group not doing their job and not responding to any critiques made my other team members. Another barrier could be the flow of the paper because we all have different writing techniques so it could create a choppy sounding paper. Benefits of working as a group is the amount of work that everyone would have to do would decrease. Also, it will be interesting to get different points of view and input from each person of the group.
This project will be useful in my future nursing practice. Collaborative work is the core of health care. In my practice, I will be a part of an interprofessional health care team. This team will consist of people who all have different roles, but their main goal is focused around the patient. Similarly, during this paper we will all have different parts of the project to do but our main goal is to create a scholarly essay for our final paper. The ability to work with others in critical in the nursing world, so working on this project with a team will help me practice doing that. I will take skills that I learn throughout creating the final paper with me throughout my nursing career.
The stigma associated with mental health has the greatest contribution from the media. Media portrays those with a mental illness as erratic, dangerous, unpredictable, and incapable. Because the media portrays mental illness in this manner, it causes people to begin to associate these characteristics with any mentally ill patient. It complicates the lives those who suffer greatly. Although media plays a huge role in the stigma behind mental illness, I also believe that a lack of understanding can also contribute to the association. The misleading portrayl of patients with mental illness in TV shows or movies causes the public to believe exactly what they are seeing. The picture that society paints of a mentally ill patient causes the world to discriminate against them and blame them for their illness. The public stigma that society has created associated with mental illness causes those who suffer to experience self- stigma. Self- stigma is when the patient internalizes the negative stereotypes surrounding mental illness. The stereotypes surrounding mental illness causes these patients to be misunderstood. This misunderstanding makes everything harder for them. For example, employers may not hire them, landlords may not rent to them, and health care workers may not care to their best ability. These actions of society destroys the self esteem of the individual. It makes them feel unworthy and they apply the negativity associated with mental illness to themselves. Sterotypes associate with mental illness has a ripple effect. It begins with the negative portrayl of a mentally ill individual, leading to public stigma, then progressing to self-stigma. Self- stigma has many harmful effects in recovery of those with mental illness and will steer them away from treatment.
A person’s culture can greatly impact their response to mental illness. There are different views on mental illness and how to cope with it based on culture. There is something called the cultural idiom of distress which is a term used to describe the suffering within a cultural group based on cultural explanations. For example, Hispanic individuals use the word “nervios” as the cause for a variety of symptoms including headache, irritability, nervousness, insomnia, and difficulty concentrating. These symptoms could also be seen in mentally ill patients but is masked by a cultural belief. Additionally, there are some cultures who create a stigma around seeking health care, specifically African Americans and Hispanics. They will only visit health care professionals if all other resources have been used, which will delay recovery. Also, there are cultures who refuse to believe that mental illness exists. The Asian cultures has a tradition of disguising or denying the presence of mental illness and shame those who are treated for it. Belief and spirituality may also impact an individuals response to mental illness. Different religious beliefs will approach mental illness differently. Some may seek direct help, while some believe that a greater being will heal them. Understanding the patients religious beliefs and spiritualities will help to find a common course of treatment for the patient.
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