Nursing Research and Evidence-based Practice.

What would Florence Nightingale Say about Nursing Research and Evidence-based Practice Today?

Purpose: To explain the relationships between theory, research, and evidence-based practice beginning with Florence Nightingale the most recognized name in the field of nursing. Her work was instrumental for developing modern nursing practice. From her first shift, she worked to ensure patients had what they needed to get healthy. Her Environmental Theory changed the face of nursing to create sanitary conditions for patients to get care. Much of our care directly reflects her theory.Nursing Research and Evidence-based Practice.

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Tasks: Write a 4-page narrative (4-pages maximum – 5-point deduction for over/under page limit as submitted in Turnitin) in 7th edition APA formatting including a title page, abstract page, and a reference page. Use level 1 headings (level 2 subheadings if needed), intext citations using the inclusion/exclusion criteria and cited on the reference page. This is a scholarly publishable paper – DO NOT WRITE IN FIRST PERSON. Use current published peer-reviewed literature (articles, books) found on FIU library databases to support your statements. You may read information from web pages, but do not use as a reference for your paper. Look at the web page’s references for appropriate reference citations. Find scholarly documents from the FIU database.Nursing Research and Evidence-based Practice.

Page 1: Title page: What would Florence Nightingale Say about Nursing Research and Evidence-based Practice Today? Do use a running head (a shortened version of the title – 50 characters or less in ALL CAPS on each page of the document).

Page 2: Abstract: The abstract should open with a sentence that will serve as an introduction to the purpose of your paper. You may reuse the same sentence for your introductory paragraph. Refer to your APA Manual on how to draft an abstract. An abstract is usually a brief outline of the contents you wrote in the paper and typically does not exceed 250 words. At the end of the abstract place the phrase Keywords and denote 3-4 keywords that would describe your paper (for publication and indexing in CINAHL or PubMed).Nursing Research and Evidence-based Practice.

Pages 3-6: Narrative (Four pages maximum), points deducted for over/under page limits. Use the Sample Student Paper Example in the 7th edition APA Manual to help you format your paper including level 1 headings and Level 2 subheadings if needed. Nursing Research and Evidence-based Practice.

Page 7: Reference page. Refer to your 7^th edition APA Manual.

This review is a scholarly publishable paper in 7^th edition APA format and with at least three APA references (two articles and one textbook [for this assignment only]), cited both in the text and the reference page.

Inclusion/Exclusion criteria for references:Nursing Research and Evidence-based Practice.

• Use the CINAHL database and others found in FIU library to conduct a Literature Review to find articles from peer-reviewed journals. (Refer to the presentations How to Access the FIU Library and How to Do a Literature Search using CINAHL found in the Supplemental Readings).
• Do Not use websites. Only use library database sites to find reference material.
• Do use at least 1 book reference [for this assignment only].
• Cite the articles in the text and reference page.
• Do not use quotes [practice paraphrasing]

Criteria for Success: See Written Communication Rubric below.

Florence Nightingale is considered among the pioneer nursing theorist, based on her work providing nursing care to wounded soldiers. Her main theory is linked to environmental theory, where she contended that patients have a very strong relationship with their environment, the nurse, and their health. Nightingale influenced nursing through developing systematic data collection systems, laid the groundwork for randomized control trials (RCTs), patient safety issues, and the use of diagrams for patient education.Nursing Research and Evidence-based Practice.Nursing Research and Evidence-based Practice. Nightingale championed for data collection as an integral process in nursing research, which is applicable today. She laid the groundwork for empirical studies in nursing, such as the application of RCTs. Nightingale also insisted on the aspect of the patient and the environment as critical factors in nursing. Therefore, Nightingale would provide recommendations on preventing the patient falls and reducing the incidence of CAUTIs for the inpatients. Overall, her evidence-based nursing approach is applicable today, and Nightingale would recommend a few adjustments to improve the approaches.Nursing Research and Evidence-based Practice.Nursing Research and Evidence-based Practice.

Florence Nightingale and Nursing Research and Evidence-based Practice Today

Florence Nightingale Nursing Approach

Florence Nightingale is considered among the pioneer nursing theorist, based on her work providing nursing care to wounded soldiers. Her main theory is linked to environmental theory, where she contended that patients have a very strong relationship with their environment, the nurse, and their health. The major paradigms in her nursing theory include human, health, nurse, and the environment (Sher & Akhtar, 2018). The human element refers to the person that requires nursing care, which creates the need for nursing care.Nursing Research and Evidence-based Practice.

The environment is the physical space in which the patient receives the care. This environment should be designed according to patients’ needs to promote their recovery. Nursing is another element in this theory, which refers to the modification of the patient environment to provide them with comfort during their illness, and that the nurse should be aware of their role in the patient’s recovery process (Sher & Akhtar, 2018). Lastly, achieving health, which is a dynamic process according to Nightingale, requires proper dietary habits, drinking pure water, promoting personal hygiene, living in a warm environment with proper ventilation, and installing proper drainage and sewer systems. Her nursing theory is wholesome, and when properly applied, patient recovery and positive health outcomes are all guaranteed.Nursing Research and Evidence-based Practice.

What Florence Nightingale Would Say about Nursing Research and Evidence-based Practice Today

As a leading nursing theorist, Nightingale was keen on establishing the root causes of mortality among the soldiers in the Crimean War. It is safe to say that Nightingale was obliviously applying evidence-based nursing and research to develop her theories and provide nursing care for the wounded soldiers. Upon her return from the Crimean War in 1856, Nightingale pressed for the establishment of a research commission, which would collect data on diseases and mortality, and how these problems could be promptly dealt with. Therefore, Nightingale influenced nursing through developing systematic data collection systems, laid the groundwork for randomized control trials (RCTs), patient safety issues, and the use of diagrams for patient education.Nursing Research and Evidence-based Practice.

Systemic Data Collection in Nursing

Data collection in nursing is extremely crucial for the provision of precise nursing care to patients and enhancing their health outcomes. She championed for data collection as an integral process in nursing research, which is applicable today. For instance, the Center for Disease Commission (CDC) engages in disease research, especially for infectious diseases, and provides consultative services to other countries and international organizations on disease prevention and control, as well as promoting environmental health. Nightingale would be extremely proud of these new developments, especially because the CDC is an organization committed to disease research, which was a crucial point Nightingale made to the government upon her return from war. The CDC engages in data collection on various diseases, the populations it affects the most, how to prevent the development of diseases, among other measures. Nightingale inspired the data collection process in nursing to enhance evidence-based service provision for the patients. Therefore, seeing other institutions similar to CDC, such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), would make Nightingale proud that she introduced the evidence-based concept in nursing and medicine.Nursing Research and Evidence-based Practice.

Introduction and Application of Randomized Control Trials in Nursing

In light of evidence-based nursing, the 1970s saw the introduction of the concept of Randomized Control Trials, which have proved effective in providing and enhancing nursing care. Randomized Control Trials (RCTs) are study designs where the researcher’s group participants into experimental groups and control groups (Nelson, 2011). The expected differences between the control groups and the experimental groups provide the results of the variable tested, which is important in eliminating bias and testing of new treatments. In nursing, RCTs are critical because they inform the nurse on the best action to take when handling a patient or in applying a particular nursing technique on a patient. Florence Nightingale laid the groundwork for empirical studies in nursing.Nursing Research and Evidence-based Practice.

While Nightingale would approve of the use of RCTs in nursing, she would highlight the potential risks of bias, which threatens the validity of the study and its results, ultimately, misguiding nursing practice. One of the significant challenges with RCTs is the risk of bias, where the problem of randomization continues to plagues nurse researchers. This problem leads to the preference of trial designs where patients or participants in the study can opt-in or out of the study. This approach is less hectic and time saving for the nurse researchers (Park et al., 2014). However, this participant selection technique undermines the randomization process, which is the essence of the study; to work with a random sample and enhance the validity of the study. While still proud of this development based on her groundwork, Nightingale would criticize this aspect of RCTs and strongly recommend the use of a random sample to eliminate any form of bias in the study. The reduced randomness in sample selection undermines the validity of the study, and ultimately, the nursing practice that relies on the results of such studies.Nursing Research and Evidence-based Practice.

Patient Safety Issues

One of the Nightingale’s arguments was that patient safety was crucial and every healthcare practitioner’s responsibility to provide it. Patient safety, according to Nightingale, is achievable through collaboration among nurses and other healthcare workers, as well as ensuring that the patient environment is conducive for their healing. The patient environment mostly includes the physical environment, where hospitals should ensure that patients access clean, bright, and well-aerated wards that reduce their chances of acquiring infections. The environment also includes the equipment that nurses and physicians use on patients. While hospitals have implemented these measures on ensuring patient safety, Nightingale would be jarred and disappointed to find that issues such as patient fall and catheter urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) are still a major problem in most hospitals, all caused by environmental issues within the healthcare facilities. These challenges continue to endanger patient health and lead to adverse healthcare outcomes for the patient and the healthcare facilities because of the development of negative publicity. For instance, a study by Podlovik et al. (2019) established that CAUTIs are five times likely to afflict patients in ICUs. In another study by Slade et al. (2016), the researchers established that patient falls were common in surgical wards and attributable to factors such as limited environmental modifications and patient characteristics.Nursing Research and Evidence-based Practice.

Nightingale insisted on the aspect of the patient and the environment as critical factors in nursing. Therefore, Nightingale would provide recommendations on preventing the patient falls and reducing the incidence of CAUTIs for the inpatients. For instance, one of the recommendations that Nightingale would make would be for hospitals to research the most appropriate environmental modifications that would prevent patient falls. Data collection would probably be her first choice, where she would recommend that hospitals engage in research, to establish which measures are best. For the CAUTIs problem, Nightingale would recommend the use of empirical studies for the hospital to gauge the best interventions to use to reduce the incidence of the infections. To provide solutions to these problems, Nightingale would recommend research and the use of evidence-based studies to make policy decisions within hospital settings that aim to enhance patient health outcomes.Nursing Research and Evidence-based Practice.

Use of Diagrams in Patient Education

One of the most significant contributions by Nightingale in nursing was the use of diagrams to represent her statistical findings. These diagrams were supposed to translate the evidence collected from data collection to nursing practice. As such, she developed action plans that aimed to improve sanitary conditions in inpatient and community environments to promote infection control and eliminate problems such as sepsis among patients. Therefore, she applied techniques such as diagrams for hand washing and bathing, which were meant to educate patients on maintaining proper personal hygiene. Today, the World Health Organization, the FDA, the CDC, and other large healthcare organizations practice this patient education style by recommending the use of diagrams and charts for patient education. Most times, when people visit healthcare facilities, it is common to find wall hangings with diagrams on how to wash hands, wiping stool, diagrams of the different biological systems in the body, all aimed at providing patient education. Therefore, Nightingale would be proud to have left a positive impact in the society considering her patient education approach, based on evidence collected from research, is practiced globally.Nursing Research and Evidence-based Practice.