How to Start a Critical Appraisal Essay Text

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The author of this assignment will critically appraise a qualitative research report in the nursing standard titled care of older people with dementia in an acute hospital setting. He will use the polit and beck 2010 and roe 1998 framework to help him critique this article. The article was chosen mainly on a personal reasons that as a third year student nurse the author has witnessed how healthcare professional act differently towards patients with dementia and how there is a need for education to improve health care professionals skills in dealing with dementia patients. Also according to the alzheimer's society 2010 there are approximately 750,0 people with dementia in the uk. The reason for nursing research is to generate knowledge about nursing education, nursing administration, health care services, characteristic of nurses and nursing roles, in which the finding from these studies indirectly affect nursing practice and thus add to nursing body of knowledge.

Our writers can help get your essay back on track, take a look at our services to learn more about how we can help. Essay writing service essay marking service place an order according to gerrish and lacey 2006 the introduction must convince the reader that the proposed study is important and it should identify how the study will add to previous work and build on theory. For the purpose of this research paper cowell 2009 has decided to write the introduction separate from the main abstract. Cowell clearly explains why the study needs to be investigated within the introduction and convinces the reader that the best way to investigate this research would be to use a qualitative approach, to address this gap in knowledge. According to parahoo 2006 titles that are too long or short can be confusing or misleading. The title in cowell's 2009 study is unambiguous, concise, and highlights with clarity the content of the research study. A literature review is to give an objective account of what has been previously been written on a giving topic moule and goodman, 2009.

In this research the literature review provided a list of data bases that where used to search for articles papers on dementia and keywords that where used within the search. She also included the period 1980 2004 that she used within her literature review. The articles investigated a range of different subjects however there was limited evidence that these had achieved a demonstrable change in practice due to study limitations and the sample size. The literature review does comment on only a few research articles out of forty seven she found. This may be due to study limitation and one in particular, which was relevant to cowells study was that none of the patients where actually diagnosed with dementia. Holloway and wheeler 2010 state that normally in qualitative literature overview the discussion of literature tends to be more limited than in other types of research.

The articles that the researches choose to comment on helps to convince the reader that views of nurses on dementia care are limited and that care of dementia patient in acute hospital needed to be addressed. Overall the literature review provides detailed references, keywords and information on how she went about her search, but the study fails to provide recent research material in conjunction with the study title. Moule and goodman 2006 advise researchers to use up to date studies, that is, certainly not more than ten years old and preferable not more than five years old.

The reason why cowell hasn't used any up to date studies may be because she might not want readers to be influenced by any previous material and that dementia has become a focus of political agendas, which enables the researcher to identify gaps that can be addressed. Cowell has used a qualitative approach to this study and has decided to use naturalistic paradigm. Naturalistic researchers tend to look in detail at a specific group of people or a particular situation walsh and wigens, 2003. This approach tries to gain an awareness and appreciation of how particular individuals or groups of people view and experience the world moule and goodmand, 2009. Qualitative research is a form of social inquiry that focuses on the way people make sense of their experiences and the world in which they live holloway and wheeler, 2010.

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Where quantitative research seeks to test a hypothesis or answer research questions based on a framework loblondo wood and haber, 2006. The researcher tells the reader in the abstract that she will use an ethnographic approach. Ethnography means a portrait of people and involves writing about people and culture moule and goodman, 2009. These approaches use observational and interview data collection methods, which is what the researcher has used within this research article.

The aim of ethnographers is to learn from rather than to study members of a culture group to understand their world view as they perceive and live it and social norms of a particular group, such as nurses polit and beck, 2010. Overall the researcher has used the best approach to find out the experiences of patients and nurses in relation to care delivered to, and received by, older with dementia. Who wrote this essay request removal example essays data was collected during 2005 2006 from 3 special older people wards. The researcher mentions that ethnographic observations and interviews where used and that a total of 125 hours of observation were completed in two five hour blocks between 7am 8pm. No rationale was given for how the decision about the type of interviews that were going to be used. According to moule and goodman, 2009 it should have been clearly presented and justified. How the data was collected in relation to the methodology used was ok but limitations to the study for example small sample size, using patient that had server dementia who may have had cognitive impairment.

Gerrish and lacey 2010 say that sample size is not an intrinsic feature of the analysis in qualitative research. Data was transcribed and verbatim as soon as possible following the data collection. This method also has implications in that the researcher may have to transcribe the interview write out what is said moule and goodman, 2009. Nurse researchers have a professional responsibility to design research that uphold sound ethical principles and protect human rights speziale and carpenter, 2007. Cowell has appeared too adhered to the guidelines and adequately safeguarded the rights of the participants due to the incorporation of these 4 principles into her research design.

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Ethical approval was also gained from the local nhs research ethics committee and the nhs trust involved within the study. The researcher used two subs headings within the findings/results she listed them as patient experience of care and nursing staff experiences of care delivery. Within the findings section the researcher used some direct quotes from both the patient and nursing staff, which the reader found they where biased and not very reliable. Only because a small sample number of patients where involved with in the research and all had server dementia which could have been an influence.

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According to the alzheimer's society 2010 memory loss is likely to be very severe in the later stages of dementia. So why did the researcher not included patients who where newly diagnosed or only had mild dementia that where able to communicate more and probably expressed the feelings better. The strengths of the results was that all the patients where diagnosed with dementia before they where admitted to the hospital and mini mental examination where carried out, which results ranged from 0 7 that indicated server dementia. The researcher also never comments on any organisation or environmental factors that could of influenced the results or have an impact on the patient's feelings/experiences.