Defining a Role for Primary Health Care Nurse Practitioners in Rural Nova Scotia
Prepare a critical analysis of a quantitative study focusing on protection of human participants, data collection, data analysis, problem statement, and interpretation of findings. Each study analysis will be 750-1,000 words and submitted in one document. Refer to the resource Research Critique, Part 2. Questions under each heading should be addressed as a narrative, in the structure of a formal paper. Prepare this assignment according to the APA guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required. This assignment uses a grading rubric. Instructors will be using the rubric to grade the assignment; therefore, students should review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the assignment criteria and expectations for successful completion of the assignment. Submit the assignment along with an electronic version of the article used for the analysis. If an electronic version is not available, submit a clean unmarked copy of the article.
Research Critique, Part 2
To write a critical appraisal that demonstrates comprehension of the research study conducted, respond to each of the questions listed under the headings below. Do not answer the questions with a yes or no; rather, provide a rationale or include examples or content from the study to address the questions.
CRITICAL APPRAISAL GUIDELINES: QUANTITATIVE STUDY
Protection of Human Participants
- Identify the benefits and risks of participation addressed by the authors. Were there benefits or risks the authors do not identify?
- Was informed consent obtained from the subjects or participants?
- Did it seem that the subjects participated voluntarily in the study?
- Was institutional review board approval obtained from the agency in which the study was conducted?
Data Collection
- Are the major variables (independent and dependent variables) identified and defined? What were these variables?
- How were data collected in this study?
- What rationale did the author provide for using this data collection method?
- Identify the time period for data collection of the study.
- Describe the sequence of data collection events for a participant.
Data Management and Analysis
- Describe the data management and analysis methods used in the study.
- Did the author discuss how the rigor of the process was assured? For example, does the author describe maintaining a paper trail of critical decisions that were made during the analysis of the data? Was statistical software used to ensure accuracy of the analysis?
- What measures were used to minimize the effects of researcher bias (their experiences and perspectives)? For example, did two researchers independently analyze the data and compare their analyses?
Findings / Interpretation of Findings
- What is the researcher’s interpretation of findings?
- Are the findings valid or an accurate reflection of reality? Do you have confidence in the findings?
- What limitations of the study were identified by researchers?
- Was there a coherent logic to the presentation of findings?
- What implications do the findings have for nursing practice? For example, can the study findings be applied to general nursing practice, to a specific population, to a specific area of nursing?
- What suggestions are made for further studies?
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Defining a Role for Primary Health Care Nurse Practitioners in Rural Nova Scotia
Protection of Human Participants
Informed consent was obtained from the participants through the informed consent participation form that they signed agreeing to the conditions of being part of the study. Returning of a signed form was consent to be a participant of the study (Burns, 2011). Therefore, there was voluntary participation. Moreover, ethics approval was acquired from the Conjoint Ethics Board for Research of the University of Calgary and Research Board of the Social Sciences and Humanities at Dalhousie University. A further six District Health Authorities in Nova Scotia needed different ethics approval procedures that were effectively obtained to facilitate the study in each location (Martin-Misener, 2006).
Data Collection
The researcher did not define the dependent and independent variables. However, data was collected using two methods individual interviews and surveys. Semi-structured individual interviews were used to collect data. This was mainly through telephone interviews that were conducted on a purposive sample of the population that included the Chairpersons from the two levels of the devolved health governance structures in Nova Scotia (Martin-Misener, 2006). These were selected as participants were far away from the researcher (Burns, 2011). The participants here were recruited and interviewed for 5 months (May to September 2004). The interviews were approximately one hour long using a semi-structured interview guide. The process incorporated principles aiming at reducing the hierarchical relationship between participant and researcher. The interviews were taped and transcribed with notes being taken during the interview. Two or three interviews were conducted and analyzed concurrently to allow evolution of the analysis (Cresswell, 2003).
The surveys were done on the Nurse Practitioners (NPs), public health nurses, family physicians, and family practice nurses. This was targeted at obtaining their perceptions of primary healthcare services and the NP’s role (Abdallah, Fawcett, Kane, & Chen, 2005). Demographic data was not collected as the number NP participants were small and this would have compromised the anonymity. The survey was a modification of a previously used survey method to assess the need for and define the role of NPs in Ontario. Permission from the initial survey author allowed modifications in the following ways; elimination of the registered nurse category being replaced with the public health nurse and family practice nurse (Martin-Misener, 2006) . To reflect collaboration in Nova Scotia, NP and physician category was added. Items to include public health activities were included. To reflect the context of practice open-ended questions were included. To reflect the full spectrum of Advanced Practice Nursing (APN), items were included that were related to administration, education, and research. Finally, minor rewordings were done regarding activities as directed by an expert panel. Postcards were included with the survey and instructions for completing to learn about the non-responders (Martin-Misener, 2006).
Data Management and Analysis
Surveys were analyzed quantitatively using the SPSS version 9.0 computer software and the data accuracy verified by rechecking 10% of the data entered in the SPSS program. The rate of error for the collected data was 0.008% implying that the accuracy of data entry was 100% (Abdallah, Fawcett, Kane, & Chen, 2005). Categorical responses were used to calculate the descriptive statistics. The Chi-square test for categorical responses regarding issues concerning prescribing was used to determine whether differences were present between responses of healthcare providers who had previously worked with an NP and those who had not. Qualitative analysis was used in some...