Appraising the evidence within a specialist context Assignment Brief Component 1 2500 words plus or minus 10% (80% weighting) Component One – Review of the literature You are required to identify an aspect of practice from your specialist area of practice and produce a critical review of the literature. Defining the topic area/ aspect of practice The selection of your topic area is important step and there are several considerations, which you should bear in mind. • It should be an area in which you are personally interested and a topic in which you feel practice can be developed by examining the best available evidence. • You need to select a topic that will potentially gain the support of your manager and other relevant health care professionals. • You are advised to discuss your ideas with the module leader or allocated marker. Component one must include the following:- You must construct a specific question relating to an aspect of your specialist area of practice. 1. There needs to be a clear link to the question and your area of clinical practice; the justification needs to be explicit. 2. Secondly you need to seek out and find, as efficiently as possible, a literature / evidence based information that explores and addresses the question. • Databases and indexes used will need to be identified, along with key words utilised within the search. 3. The main part of the assignment will consist of a critical review of the research literature found in order to draw sound conclusions that will answer your question. • This literature review should include a critique of the methodology used, sample sizes and findings. • In addition clear judgements must be made regarding the reliability and validity of the research appraised, and its usefulness/relevance to your topic area/ client/patient group. • The evidence evaluated will be presented in an analytical way, with comparisons made between the relevant papers, in the form of a literature review. 6NH049 Suggested general plan for assignment one Brief Introduction- what is evidence-based practice, definitions, NMC code, why needed, current policy/guidance etc, debate about the concept and application of evidence based practice.( 200) Introduce topic, context, background. Why is this important? (300) Question- state the clinical question (not the proposed intervention), method used to define question eg PICO Apply the framework to the question(200) Literature Search – What is the purpose of literature search? Provide a couple of sentences in main text to sum up literature search. The following details of the literature search can be put into appendix. For example :- The search strategy used, databases searched , manual searches etc, what exclusion criteria and / or inclusion criteria did you use eg just UK articles, where they limited to articles published in last 5 yrs, gender, type of nurse etc Search Results – How many articles found, type of evidence found eg Random controlled trials, systematic reviews, qualitative , primary source etc , how many articles were then selected and deemed to be the most relevant and appropriate and why. (500) Literature review findings (this will be the main bulk of discussion) 1200 WORDS APPROX Need to state what framework was used to appraise the findings eg CASP or Greenhalgh (2010). See CANVAS Look for themes that occur within in the studies Collaborative Working, Communication, Role of the nurse etc (suggest no more than 2/3 themes) Needs to be a critical, analytical discussion. Do not describe each paper but compare and contrast papers. Put the 3 papers together for discussion. Brief conclusion/ summary of findings (200). Reflecting on how you have gained a new perspective on the issue, how does the evidence you have found answer/ support your clinical question, how will this lead to the development of practice
