The introduction of the many-to-many model of communication, e.g. social networking services, has affected many professional areas in the modern world, including the area of health care. There is an ongoing debate on how the achievements of the technological progress modify professional activities of health care providers and how nurses and physicians can benefit from using social networking services (Fraser, 2012). One of the possible benefits is the use of social networking services by advanced practice nurses in order to share information and interact with patients, which can improve their work.
The research question is: How do advanced practice registered nurses use social networking services in their work and how do they perceive the benefits of using such services?
The research will employ both qualitative and quantitative methods to answer the research question, i.e. the type of the research is mixed. The quantitative research method is calculating how many nurses in a sample use social networking services and what portions of the content that they produce (or share) relate to the area of their professional activities. The two qualitative research methods are content analysis (to examine the content that nurses produce and share and to categorize it) and interviews, which will allow evaluating how the participating nurses perceive the benefits and helpfulness of using social networking services for their work.
In order to answer the research question, certain variables for measurement need to be established, and the correlation between them needs to be explored. In this research, the independent variable, or the predictor variable, is the use of social networking services. The value of this variable will be defined by means of two tools. The first tool is measuring the nurses’ activities in social networking services, i.e. calculating the time they spend on social media websites and counting the amount of their actions and interactions, such as posts, shares, likes, etc., within a given period of time. This tool is quantitative. The second tool is qualitative.
It is the content analysis of what nurses post or share, which will allow the classification of their posts, tweets, blog messages, etc. into categories like “education,” “personal experience,” “asking for advice,” and so on. These two tools will collect statistical information on how much the participating nurses use social networking services for their work and what exactly they use them for. The second variable is the dependent variable, also called the outcome variable. In this research, the dependent variable is perceived benefits of the use of social networking services. The value of this variable will be established by interviewing the nurses. The participants are supposed to provide specific examples of how they think their work improves as a result of the use of social networking services, if they think that such improvements, in fact, take place.
In any research, it is crucial to explain every term, notion, and concept that are used in the framing of the study, i.e. in the research questions and hypotheses. Without such explaining, findings and results may be insufficient or inadequate to support the conclusion, i.e. to answer the research question or to confirm or disconfirm the hypothesis. Therefore, key concepts of a study should be defined. However, researchers distinguish two types of definitions: conceptual and operational (Polit & Beck, 2016). A conceptual definition deals with the theoretical meaning of a concept. An operational definition explains how a particular phenomenon or notion can be measured or analyzed by means of a certain study. Two things to be defined in this research are the variables, i.e. the use of social networking services and the perceived benefits for the advanced nursing practice.
The use of social networking services is defined as the complex of activities on social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter. It includes the amount of time spent on these websites, the amount of actions and interactions (posts, shares, tweets, retweets, likes, etc.), and the categorization of purposes related to work (education, discussion, communicating with patients, etc.). The definition of the use of social networking services is operational, i.e. it allows collecting data and using them to answer the research question. The perceived benefits are defined as improvements in the work of a nurse that he or she attributes to the use of social media websites. The definition of helpfulness of the use of social networking services for the advanced practice nursing work is conceptual because it will be based on the participating nurses’ personal reflections on the connection between what they do on social media websites and how they improve in their work.
References
Fraser, R. (2012). Overview and summary: Social media and communication technology: New “friends” in healthcare. The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 17(3), 1-3.
Polit, D., & Beck, C. (2016). Nursing research: Generating and assessing evidence for nursing practice. Philadelphia, PA: Wolters Kluwer Health.