NR505 W5 Assignment: Critique of a Systemic Research Review

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Critique of a Systemic Research Review
Systematic Research Review (SRR) is an important tool in nursing, for reviewing nursing articles to ascertain their evidence-based level in solving health problems. This tool provides systematic steps in the critique and assessment of various phases of a research project. This study shall analyze works done by Grover, Singh, and Sidhu (2015), to check the relevance of their research, research rigor, levels of evidence, clarity of the study, and overall findings.
Relevance of research problem
The study titled A Prospective Randomized Trial of Open Wound Treatment vs Occlusive Dressings in Elective Surgical Cases with Respect to Surgical Site Infections by Grover, Singh, and Sidhu in 2015, sought to compare the post-surgery outcomes of wound dressing and open wound treatment in terms of prevention of surgical site infection. According to the researchers, the act of wound dressing is a popular one and majorly favored by surgeons and nurses as it conceals the wound from patients, offers protections to wound sutures, and provides easier management of wound exudates. Past researches provided conflicting evidence on the safety of using open wound treatment for post-surgery patients, which the researchers sought to demystify the wrong perceptions and offer a solution.
Additionally, the researchers sought to identify the economic and medical importance of open wound treatment; whether it can offer an alternative to wound dressing, which is costly and leads to mixed outcomes in terms of wound healing. The surgical site infection is a major nasocomial infection present in the hospital setting, which causes prolonged hospital stay, higher costs of treatments, readmissions, and even death (Grover, Singh, & Sidhu, 2015). Therefore, the research does justice in attempting to offer an alternative solution to a common clinical problem.
Research rigor and level of evidence
The researchers cited studies done by Law and Ellis (1987) and Asnake (2001) which supported the safety of open wound treatment, while Katakura et al. (2005) and Demetriades and Psaras (1992) provided contrary evidences. In the first category, the researchers specifically compared open wound treatment with wound dressing concerning bacterial infection in 170 and 120 patients undergoing surgeries respectively. The researchers found no harm in using open wound treatment. In the second group, the researches were monocentric in nature, majorly comparing different method of wound dressing in comparison to open wound treatment in rats and 10 patients suffering from burns respectively. The monocentric nature of these studies provided room for more research as the numbers of patients used in the studies were not statistically significant.
Additionally, the researches that yielded negative results to using open wound treatment had no reference to reduction of surgical site infection or bacterial infection and were not relevant enough to be of use in this study. However, the researches by Law and Ellis (1987) and Asnake (2001) were rigorous in their levels of evidence and methodologies, evidenced by the randomization used and exposure of patients to same clinical conditions. The authors cited works by Walter et al. (2012), Quirinia, and Viidik (2001), which offered a more relevant approach to support their methodologies and findings. Grover, Singh, and Sidhu (2015) only used peer-reviewed articles, providing a high level of evidence to their research study. Although the study was monocentric in nature, the researchers excluded patients with ailments and other medical conditions that could sway the results of the study, providing more legitimacy to their research. The randomization criteria used also divided patients into equal groups with no significant difference in age, gender, and surgical wound classification. This provided little room for bias.
Clarity of the study
The research study took one year, running between April 2010 and April 2011, providing ample time for following up the patients to analyze their progress. In the study, the researchers provided the statistical background on how they arrived at using 100 subjects, keeping the infection rate at 11.1% as stated by Asnake (2001), having a power of 67% in the sample group so as to maintain reduction in infection rate by 90% in the exposed subjects. ...