In addition to your clinicals, this class, other courses, studying, eating, sleeping and well, life... you do not have time to conduct original research. For this capstone, you will be relying on others' research to support your PICO(T) and intervention. Basically, you are writing a literature review research paper.
You will see in your capstone requirements that you need five (5) articles. This is specifically for the literature review section of your capstone. These articles must be original research on the use/ efficacy of your intervention or support the need of your intervention. This is where you will want to find those quantitative and qualitative research articles- look back at your notes from NURS-450 if you need a refresher.
If you find a literature review that sums up the best practices for the intervention, look at the reference list or bibliography. See if there are any research articles you could use instead of the literature review. These articles must meet the following criteria: written by a nurse, written for a nursing audience and published in a nursing journal. If it does not meet all three criterion, you cannot use it in your literature review section.
In addition to researching your intervention, you will also need to find support information for your introduction and background sections. Providing this information will not only make you more knowledgeable about your topic but also sets the stage for introducing your intervention. For the introduction and background sections, the information provided here can come from anywhere- books, websites, summary or best-practices articles, articles from trade journals, etc. Just make sure that you evaluate the information before using it in your paper!
An original research article will have the following elements:
If you do not see all of the above mentioned, most likely you are not looking at an original research article.
You will need five (5) original research studies for the literature review section of your paper. These are the types of articles that you are looking for when it comes to filling out the literature review matrix (if your professor requires it).
Eastern Washington University Libraries. (2020, November 3). Types of scholarly articles [LibGuide]. https://research.ewu.edu/scholarly_articles/types
UCMerced Library. (2020, July 14). Types of scholarly articles [LibGuide]. https://libguides.ucmerced.edu/wri105_downey
When checking to see if the original research article you found is a true nursing intervention, take a look for the following items.
For the literature review section, you need to focus on nursing interventions for a few reasons. They are as follows:
In this video, we go over what it means to do a keyword search and a subject heading search and why you should incorporate a subject heading search when you are looking for articles on your intervention.
In the other sections of your paper, you can pull information from just about anywhere, as long as it is related to your topic! This can be:
Remember, any of this information can go in your introduction and background sections, as well as your PICO(T) and conclusion. This information should not be used in your literature review section, as they do not contain specific data on how your intervention works.