Critical Analysis Of The Quantitative And Mixed Methods Approaches In Nursing

Research Problem and Questions

Discuss About The Quantitative And Mixed Methods Approaches.

This essay offers a critical analysis of Smeulers, Onderwater, Zwieten & Vermeulen (2014) article the nurses’ experiences and perspectives on medication safety practices: an explorative qualitative study. The article offers an overview of the whole research and the areas that the research was focusing on. It highlights the importance of medical safety and reducing of medical errors within the medical settings. The role of the study was to focus on the experience of nurses in reduction of medical errors to improve safety. The introduction meets the requirements of a research study since it highlights the major areas of the study by giving the reader an overview of what the study will cover. Franklin (2012) suggests that the introduction part should be appealing to the reader by giving background information on the research topic. This entails issues from the global perspective and local perspective on how the study analyses the problem.

The introduction is supposed to lead the reader from a general subject area then narrows down to the particular topic area that the study is addressing. This leads to the establishment of the scope, context and significance of the study as a summary which needs to be supported in the research questions (Bryman, 2015). The researcher starts by presenting that errors are associated with healthcare expenses which vary from facility to facility to facility. The researcher deeps further to explain contexts in which medical errors arise which include medication preparation and administration errors. The introduction offers clear background information on the topic for the reader by tracing evidence of strategies to address these errors. However, the introduction fails to lead the reader to the justification of the study since it does not narrow down to the specific relevance of the study nor does it have hypothesis that will be tested. 

The research problem for the study is exploring the role of nurse’s experience with perspectives on preventing medical administration errors. The problem statement for the study is merged in the introduction by giving both background information and the research problem statement to the reader. However, it is stated clearly and consciously at the top of the research article to allow the reader to pinpoint it from the rest of the research. This ensures that the reader understands what the researcher was focusing on.

Bhakar & Nathani (2015) suggests that one characteristic of a good research problem is its ability to generate research questions. Although the article has not highlighted research questions that were used in the research, the aim of the study offers the general question to the reader that can be followed through the research article. Grand challenges characteristics have been used to appraise and determine the strength of a research topic and challenge. Scholars argue that a good research problem needs to meet the grounded theory requirements by having a theoretical framework for their analysis (Howell, 2013)The researcher proves this by analyzing different sets of literature that the topic relates to as a way of opening up the problem for the reader to understand the context of the problem. The researcher management with literature and previous research to connect the reader with other studies done before thus justifying the grand challenge level of the problem.

Research Design and Methods

The researcher used the case study approach was used by the researcher where an in-depth up-close and detailed examination of the nurses was carried out in Academic Medical Center. Case studies are treated as important pieces of research since they rely on actual findings rather than documented findings in literature (Creswell, 2012). The researchers relied on the nurses’ information and working mechanisms to determine the level of error reduction in clinical settings. The participants were contacted via email and then snowball sampling used to generate the names of the nurses who will participated in the study. At the beginning, all nurses participated but the process continued until saturation was reached. According to Franklin (2015) this method allows the researcher to recruit future subjects where the researcher allowss the sample to grow as data is gathered. Saturation level is reached when the researcher gathers enough data for the researcher. However, Donald, McBurney, & White (2014) suggests that this type of sampling technique does not offers the best result since it does not allow equal chances for all  participants which leads to biases thus making the data unreliable at some points. The data was collectedd through semi-structure interview of 20 participants and later reflections on safety strategies applied by nurses was used to summarise the study.

Weathington, Cunningham, & Pittenger (2015) suggests that the findings of the study must e presented in a qualitative or quantitative way based on what the researcher gathered. The researchers presented the findings in a qualitativee way to allow the reader easily understandt the outcomes of the research. The findings of the study focused on the role of nurses in medication safety. From the findings, nurses felt that safe preparation and administration of safety conditions is a requirement that all nurses have to work on. However, they felt that they need to engage more in developing feelings of responsibility by working precisely with the mediations through meeting the requirements like giving the right concentrations of patients and minimizing any human errors that can arise from the process. Since nurses play a pivot role in medication processes, nurses felt that clinical reasoning can be used in clinical processes to improve outcomes of the process. The study found out that through the reasoning cycle, nurses can assess simple conditions that indicate the medication is not working well rather than continue with the medication. This reasoning processes allows nurses to carry out situational analysis to meet the required conditions.

Findings and Analysis

Another area that the study found relevant was the ability of the nurses to work safely with medications through awareness and circumstances. Awareness of risks is derived from knowledge gathered through experience or learning. Knowledge awareness reduces the chance of errors by reducing the perceived risks through analyzing the characteristics of the situation like route of administration, patient characteristics and condition. For example, there are established protocols that need to be followed thus the practitioner must observe all the required conditions. This process increases patient awareness and the ability for them to reduce risks that can be realized in the process. Circumstances entail the perceived risks that the practitioner uses to assess the situation and determine the best approach to be taken. This leads to safe working conditions. Circumstances create conditions for increased knowledge through experience which improves the overall outcome. 

The study also reported nurse awareness of safety practices and their implementation strategies within the clinical context. This leads to increased clinical outcomes, reduced errors and patient safety. The more the nurse engages with the clinical processes. Safety practices and errors, the more the nurse becomes informed and aware of the practice requirements. Therefore nurses play a pivotal role in medical management and safety of patients. Through coordinating the delivery of care and close interaction with patients, they reduce any error that can be realized.

Conclusion

When concluding, the researcher offers future research direction which is a requirement for a good grand challenge. Grand challenges should address gaps in existing literature and also offers a new direction for other researchers to work on. The study proposes the need to analyze the role of both nurses and their managers in creating patient safety practices. The study concluded by analysing the role that nurses paly in the medical process and patient safety. Mechanisms processes like six sigma and clinical reasoning can be applied by nurses to prevent Healthcare administration errors as a way of improving the practice. According to Goodwin (2015) a good research should have implications in the field that it focusses in and its findings must be applied in improving practices. Smeulers, Onderwater, Zwieten, & Vermeulen ( 2014) can be applied in improving the field of nursing through adopting the recommendations of the study.

References

Bhakar, S. S., & Nathani, N. (2015). A Handbook on writing Research Paper in Social. New Delhi: Bharti Publications.

Bryman, A. (2015). Social Research Methods,. London: Routledge.

Creswell, J. (2012). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

Donald, H., McBurney, & White, T. L. (2014). Research Methods. Londona: Cengage Learning.

Franklin, M. (2012). Understanding Research: Coping with the Quantitative-Qualitative Divide. New York: Routledge.

Franklin, M. (2015). Understanding Research: Coping with the Quantitative-Qualitative Divide. New York: Routledge.

Goodwin, C. J. (2015). Research in Psychology: Methods and Design. New York: John Wiley & Sons, I.

Howell, K. E. (2013). Introduction to the Philosophy of Methodology. London: Sage Publishers.

Smeulers, M., Onderwater, A. T., Zwieten, M. C., & Vermeulen, H. (2014). Nurses’ experiences and perspectives on medication safety practices: an explorative qualitative study. Journal of nursing management,, 22(3), 276-285.

Weathington, B., Cunningham, C., & Pittenger, D. (2015). Research Methods for the Behavioral and Social Sciences (4th ed.). Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.