Evidence-based inquiry practices are vital in the modern healthcare sphere, providing the basis for high-quality services. Evidence-based practice (EBP) is a healthcare procedure that analyzes data based on the latest available medical data to derive optimal patient intervention and enhance their outcome while lowering the overall treatment cost (Hoffmann et al., 2018). Both nurses and doctors are required to use contemporary medical research in their work, driving forward the progress of the entire field and improving patient outcomes.
In this class, I learned about that EBP and its application in nursing. In addition, I was able to learn more about the PICOT approach. PICO(T) is an acronym for the components of a medical research issue, each using their own category:
- Patient – the patient includes the demographic involved in the research e.g. sex, race.
- Intervention – this include the laid-out treatment processes for the patient e.g. therapy.
- Comparison – comparison involve discerning any relevant alternative approaches for comparison.
- Outcome – these incudes the projected results expected from the research.
- Time – this is the planned duration that the medication research should take place (Lira & Rocha, 2019).
Types of evidence available in clinical practice
- Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT): Participants are randomly grouped into either the intervention or control groups (Stannard, 2019).
- Cohort study: Studies that analyze the results and risk factors of groups of people with common characteristics over time.
- Case Controlled Studies: Observatory studies monitor groups of sick patients and compare them to healthy ones (control).
- Expert opinion and background studies: This includes rich medical literature on specific topics.
- Guidelines and Summary: This includes chronological studies on various questions asked to patients and their responses.
In order to acquire evidence, the use of medical databases is often necessary. I learned about the existing medical databases and how to apply them in my research effectively. They included PubMed, Cochrane, PubMed Central (PMC), and EMBASE.
Other topics that I have become more familiar with include the completion of qualitative research. In nursing, the process involves discerning the cause or relation between known variables through mathematical and statistical analysis of collected data. An example includes calculating the heartbeat for one minute to determine normalcy or anomaly. Qualitative research requires the use of sensory means like observation to derive data on a real-life event. An example includes randomly testing people in a population for a certain condition in which it is impossible to come up with an accurate number as the tests were random.
References
Lira, R. P., & Rocha, E. M. (2019). PICOT: Imprescriptible items in a clinical research question. Digital Object Identifier System.
Stannard, D. (2019). A practical definition of evidence-based practice for nursing. Journal of PeriAnesthesia Nursing, 34(5), 1080-1084.
Hoffmann, A. L., Glasziou, P., & Albarqouni, L. (2018). Evidence-based practice educational intervention studies: A systematic review of what is taught and how it is measured. BioMed Central.