nursing graduate wanted for assistance with literature review.

kaytayy

Hello,

I am at wits end with a nursing research assignment and I am looking for a nursing graduate who could help me with this literature review please I really cannot get my head around it and am not good at research papers. Lecturers are really very unhelpful and im not sure where im going with the assignment. If you are a nursing graduate and are good with research papers, please get in touch with me. Pm me and i will give you details.

Tom Dunne

A literature review is generally the same for all disciplines.

Perhaps some of us here could help you - what exactly is the issue?

kaytayy

Thanks for your reply. Its just i really struggle with these types of research assignments and would like to do as well as i can to bring up my overall degree result.

OK, so we were told (as nursing students) to find a problem or issue in practice to do your lit review on. I chose to do it on the management and tracking of Intravenous cannulaes and the importance of the nursing care of these medical devices. (When on placement I have seen these devices left insitu for far longer than reccommended (72hrs), due to a lack of care planning, documentation and management.

My title for the lit review is "The importance of nursing care and documentation when caring for patients with a periperal intravenous cannula''

We were directed to make up a search strategy around the area, which i did and I found my reccommended 15 articles around the subject. can I ask what makes a good search strategy on paper?

we were told to discuss the main themes of these 15 articles and im confused as to what a theme is, how do i generate these themes and how will i know if these themes are accurate/correct.

These may sound like silly questions but i really am not familiar with this type of assignment, the tutors have now said that they have given some guidelines and its up to us -no more help. im at wits end with this and im thinking i would pay good money to get this done.

Tom Dunne

kaytayy wrote: »

OK, so we were told (as nursing students) to find a problem or issue in practice to do your lit review on. I chose to do it on the management and tracking of Intravenous cannulaes and the importance of the nursing care of these medical devices. (When on placement I have seen these devices left insitu for far longer than reccommended (72hrs), due to a lack of care planning, documentation and management.

Ok, so the good thing is that you are basing your research on something you are familiar with, something you have first-hand experience of. Do not underestimate the importance of this fact. When you read research papers, being able to relate the sometimes confusing academic-speak to your experiences makes things a lot easier. Trust me. Speaking from experience.

kaytayy wrote: »

My title for the lit review is "The importance of nursing care and documentation when caring for patients with a periperal intravenous cannula''

So breaking this title down, your first part is about the importance of nursing care. The first thing that springs to mind is when is nursing care not important? Not knowing the first thing about nursing, I would assume that it is always important. Therefore, is this part of the question actually relevant? Does it add anything to your research assignment, or what you are going to investigate? Is there a context missing here (as in, the importance of nursing care to X)?

The second part, documentation, is probably important in this case, so you should have a good opportunity to argue why this is so. But again, in what context? Documentation of procedures performed (not sure if that is the correct terminology)? Documentation of times/people/etc.? Why is it important. And so on.

kaytayy wrote: »

We were directed to make up a search strategy around the area, which i did and I found my reccommended 15 articles around the subject. can I ask what makes a good search strategy on paper?

A good search strategy is one that is relevant, contextual and addresses the question you are trying to answer.

kaytayy wrote: »

we were told to discuss the main themes of these 15 articles and im confused as to what a theme is, how do i generate these themes and how will i know if these themes are accurate/correct.

How do you know the articles are correct? I would guess that you got them from various journals, presumably peer-reviewed? If so, then there should be no problem with them. The themes you pick out from these articles should then be correct. Assuming you find 3 or 4 on documentation - the themes could be (aside from documentation) the type, the frequency, best practice, the person responsible and so on.

kaytayy wrote: »

These may sound like silly questions but i really am not familiar with this type of assignment, the tutors have now said that they have given some guidelines and its up to us -no more help.

Don't sweat it, we've all been there.

kaytayy wrote: »

im at wits end with this and im thinking i would pay good money to get this done.

That's a very slippery slope. For your own sake, don't go there.

innad

Hi there, you might find this book useful, there's probably a copy in your library.

A good search strategy is comprehensive and well documented: what databases did you search, what search terms did you use, what limits did you apply (date range, languages etc.) how many potential articles did you identify, how many did you reject after screening them and why, what were your inclusion and exclusion criteria. Often this information is depicted by means of a flow chart. Basically the idea is that someone else should be able to replicate your steps and find the same articles.

Themes would be the areas that are common to some or all of the papers you identified. You should get a sense from reading the papers what some of the recurring issues are. Take a look at some recent systematic reviews in your area - these should give you an idea of how a search strategy is reported, and how the information in your papers can be synthesised. Honestly once you get into it it's not that bad.

Kavrocks

I feel your pain. Literature reviews are not easy to do and in my experience nobody seems to be able to effectively teach somebody how to do one. In my opinion they take a lot of experience before one becomes competent at carrying out one and even at that the end result is very subjective.

My advice would be to contact a librarian within your university library and arrange a meeting. They above most should be best placed and extremely willing to help guide you through the process of a literature review.

kaytayy wrote: »

im at wits end with this and im thinking i would pay good money to get this done.

That's not a slippery slope that's plagiarism and against most (if not all) universities guidelines.

thegreatgonzo

Hiya, will a veterinary nursing graduate do:D
It sounds similar to a research project we had to do in 4th year. Have you searched for articles on science direct? We included a screenshot of our search in a portfolio of evidence.
Discussing the main themes sounds like an annotated bibliography. You should be able to get the jist of what the articles are about from the abstract and then critically appraise them on how relevant they are to your topic.
If your research project is like mine you should refine your topic a bit like another poster said. Like could you compare the incidence of phlebitis from iv catheters left in for less then and more than 72 hours? Apologies if yours is a different type of project. My literature review had to have the following headings: Introduction, significance of project, methodology, outcome of project (including timelines summaries of timelines and deliverables etc).

mis

Hi,
Im a nursing graduate, You have got off to a great start, great advice from Tom Dunne. I would recommend writing a table with your 15 articles on it, in each one, say where the study was done (country and medical location ward/icu..etc), method (quant or qual) id say most will be quant based on your topic so note were they online, postal survey etc., sample size (how many participated and how many were asked), note themes, limitations and recommendations.

themes are recurrent ideas that emerge for example maybe site examination, documentation or care pathways. have a look at the key words in the findings in the abstract to get the themes. Not every article will have every theme.

From your table you will have the basis of your paper, pick a theme and compare all points that come up under each theme exploring why one point may be stronger than another (bigger sample better method etc).

If your concerned about your search strategy make an appointment to see the librarian thats what they are there for. Have a look at a few systematic lit reviews on a nursing topic it will give you an idea for the basis of your paper.

Hope this helps!

kaytayy

Thanks so much to everyone who took time to reply to this post. Will try take all the information on board. appreciate it

Triona00

Hi

Can anyone explain to me about finding a gap in the literature means?

I'm very confused about this. I have my research question and some articles to answer the question but finding a gap is something I dont understand.

baby and crumble

It basically means finding something that's not already covered in the literature.

an example would be a niche topic- for example something I'm interested in would be supports for family carers who identify as part of the LGBT community. There are specific issues that those carers will face but very little work has been undertaken to find out what those issues are with evidence to back it up.

Ideally you would find the gap in the research whilst undertaking your lit review, then design your research questions to fill some of that gap.