Literature review for nursing research
Given below is the essay for literature review:
Registered nurses work in variety of clinical settings or health care fields. Critical care nursing is one of the major and complex nursing specialty areas where nurses deal with life-threatening problems. Delivering high intensity therapies and interventions, critical care nurses ensure optimal care to critically ill patients and their families. It is their prime responsibility and the job requires extreme nursing vigilance.
Stress as a phenomenon or problem within the discipline of nursing
Providing delicate care to acutely ill patients in such above mentioned environments, nurses are exposed to most stressful events or situations and it can cause them feel stressed or burnout. Therefore, stress is a common problem or phenomenon critical care or intensive care unit nurses face frequently. Stress can be defined as a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances (Linda, 2013). Thus, stress produces a negative condition that exerts pressure on a person’s physical or mental well-being. Examining the causes of stress experienced by critical care nurses provides a clear picture of how intense the problem is.
Causes of stress in critical care nurses
The nature of critical care nursing itself requires highly physical and emotional efforts. This would mean working in a stressful environment all the time. Patients in the intensive care units are critical, mortality rates are high compared to other clinical settings and nurses face ethical dilemmas very often. They encounter morally distressing situations on ethical practice or professional values. Sometimes nurses are forced to act contrary to their ethical belief. For example, unnecessary prolongation of life is one of the most stressful situation nurses face.
Intensive care nurses provide health care to patients as well as their families. This would make them emotionally exhausted. Taking over of advancing technology in the hospital settings demands higher job expectations and positive patient outcomes and this aID stress to critical care nurses. ICU nurses are required to perform highly technical jobs with compassion while working long hours under the influence of nursing shortage also make them exhausted and burnout. Feeling of ineffectiveness and lack of personal accomplishment is another contributing factor that aIDs stress to the nurses. For example, when doctors do not consider nurses’ point of views or ways of approaching a particular situation make them feel ineffective or feel personally unaccomplished. These are some of the factors that cause stress in critical care nurses.
Research Setting
The setting is an Intensive Care Unit of a 560 beIDed community hospital. The intensive Care Unit is divided into medical ICU with 8 bed capacity and coronary care unit having 9 bed capacities. A total number of 42 registered nurses are employed in these two units for day and night shifts and eight nurses work for each shift. These registered nurses are from multicultural and different ethnic backgrounds. Patient population also has multicultural background and speaking different languages.
Research Questions
1. What are the elements that influence stress level in registered nurses who work in the intensive care unit?
2. Is there any difference in stress level between the nurses working in nightshift and day shift in the intensive care unit?
3. What can be done to decrease stress level in nurses who work night shift in the intensive care unit?
4. Is there any relationship between stress and job satisfaction?
References
Linda L, Chlan (2013, December) Burnout Syndrome among critical care professionals: A cause for Alarm, Critical care Alert, Vol. 21, Issue 9.
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TASK
A. Write an essay (Please copy or refer to the above essay) in which you document your process of finding a research topic, deciding on sources, developing a search strategy, and summarizing references. Include the following:
1. Provide a problem in your field of interest that has a scope that can be studied within a typical master’s program. (Stress as a phenomenon or problem within the discipline of nursing)
2. Describe at least three symptoms of the problem or pieces of evidence that illuminate the problem.
B. Literature Search: Find materials relevant to the problem you have chosen.
1. List at least seven keywords that are representative of the problem and that you will use to guide your information search.
2. List at least two resources that you will use to find your information.
3. After performing your searches and considering your results, describe how you modified your keyword or source searches to retrieve the best results.
Note: If you did not need to modify your searches, discuss why your search was successful without revision.
4. Discuss which keywords yielded the most fruitful searches.
C. Data Evaluation: Using the CARS checklist (credibility, accuracy, reasonableness, and support), determine which literature makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the problem you have chosen.
1. In APA format, cite at least 10 recent (published within the last 5 years) journal articles, dissertations, or scholarly books that you have determined to be appropriate (credible, accurate, reasonable, and well supported).
2. Using the elements of the CARS checklist, justify your determination that each of the sources is uniquely appropriate for every aspect of the CARS checklist.
Note: It may be useful to provide your CARS checklist information in a table format.
D. Annotated Bibliography: Review and organize the sources by completing parts 1–6 below for each of the sources you have cited.
Note: An annotated list is a list to which you aID (in your own words) other relevant information and comments about the book for future reference. For this assignment, your annotations should include the information listed below:
1. Describe the content (focus) of the source.
2. Describe the usefulness of the source.
3. Discuss any limitations that the source may have.
4. Describe the audience that the source is intended for.
5. Discuss the authors’ conclusions.
6. Describe your reaction to the source.
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E. When you use sources, include all in-text citations and references in APA format.
Note: Often in research, the words source and resource can be used interchangeably based on a person’s perspective. For the purpose of this task, source refers to the individual article or dissertation that you are using. Resource refers to where you find that source, either in a journal or in an electronic database.