Qualitative Research on Reflective Practice in Nursing Critique

Reflective practice in nursing is used to determine the strengths and weaknesses in the practice. Nurses who give a reflective practice on their daily experience have been shown to improve their skills in the practice as well as influencing others to conduct a reflective practice to improve the healthcare patient outcome. Reflective practice has implications on all levels of nursing practice including students, staff nurses, charge nurses and also the advanced nursing practice. Reflective practice is also applied in the nursing curriculum and the mentors as a vital tool to improve on students practice. For this critique, it will focus on a qualitative research by Lauren C. and Claudia C. G. (2013) on the importance of reflective practice in nursing.

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Summary

The purpose of this research study was to explore the current literature regarding reflective practice and its implications. The problem study in the article is on the effect of continuous cycle reflective practice in the nursing profession which was found to affect the relationship between student nurses and their mentors. The study relied on the hypothesis by Chong (2009) which stated that "reflective practice should be a continuous cycle which experience and reflection on experiences are inter-related." On the research methodology of this article, the researchers applied a qualitative study design through literature review which was conducted from the search database. This research was a phenomenological research which was based on the nurse's experience in the profession through a literature review data collection method. The search terms used for the literature review included, reflective practice, reflective practice nursing care, reflective nursing, reflective practice nursing students, and reflective practice students (Lauren & Claudia, 2013). Through the literature review study, a total of sixteen articles were available whereby fifteen out of sixteen articles were qualitative, and the sixteenth was a quantitative research.

The literature review study of this article had both inclusion and exclusion criteria for the articles. The search criterion for the study was articles published in English between 2001 through 2012. The inclusion criteria used for the article search was "articles regarding practicing and students nurses utilizing reflective practice" while the exclusion criterion used was "articles not written in English and didn't contain any relevant information for the search" (Lauren & Claudia, 2013). The literature review data was then analyzed by the use of themes of the study which included the development of practice, emotional impact, mentor support and barriers in reflection. The above themes were then used in the reporting criteria to give a concrete conclusion of the study. One of the findings from the study was that the nursing profession is an emotional draining field where reflection was a tool to display the emotions from the practice. From the study, the conclusion was that reflection in practice was a good idea to motivate the profession and to improve the practice. Additionally, the reflective practice was shown to provide a learning goal from the practice.

Critique

The study didn't use a clear research problem and hypothesis for easier identification by the reader. Again, the research problem of this article didn't cover the entire scope of the research topic. The failure to clearly state the desired research problem is a weakness of the study. On the research methodology, which was a qualitative study through a literature review, it didn't follow a clear outline for the reader to identify the stepwise procedure of the research. On the research methodology, no distinct data analysis tool has been mentioned in the study. The purpose of data analysis tools in the research is to provide the reader with the reliability of the information gathered by the research. Additionally, the study failed to show precise results of the study and provided a findings analysis followed by the conclusion. A well-outlined research methodology has the capacity to prove the reliability of the stated hypothesis as well as answering the research question. Another purpose of a clear outline of research methodology is to integrate the steps of the study starting with a research problem, purpose through to the conclusion.

On the strengths of the study, the collection of information regarding reflective practice in the healthcare using a literature review is a better method of collecting useful information that can provide the reader or a researcher with the wide range of ideas regarding the research topic. For the reliability of a research finding, information gathered should be used to draw a conclusion regarding the research topic. Well collected data for the research study gives a reliable conclusion which supports the research hypothesis as well as answering the research question. The other strength of the study is that the researcher used study articles that had been peer reviewed. Peer reviewed journals are reliable for study and experience regarding a research topic (Grove, Gray, & Burns, 2015).

Regarding the ethical implications of the study, no humans were involved as participants of the study. The only ethical research standard that was applicable for the study is obtaining legal standards to use the articles searched in the literature review. The purpose of a legal agreement to obtain data from other researches is to allow editing and publishing the data from the researches. When humans are involved in the ethical standards are applied to avoid putting participants at risk of harm as a result of the research. The ethical standards protect the participants from different harms which include physical and psychological harms. Secondly the ethical standards are used to protect the privacy of the participants. When research is involving a patient care setting the ethical standards are used to protect the patient participants regarding their privacy and giving them informed consent. Ethical standards in the patient carte setting also provide the participants with autonomy to participate in the research. The key objectives of ethical standards are obtaining informed consent, protection of anonymity and patient confidentiality and lastly mitigating deceptive practices (Grove, Gray, & Burns, 2015).

Significance

The importance of this research topic in the nursing practice is proving findings regarding the usefulness of reflective practice. Relating to the applicability of the research study for informing patient care decision making, it has significant integration in the following ways: - one of the ways is that the study equips students, researchers and nursing educators with the knowledge to investigate what nurse's experience during patient care decision making. Reflective practice is a tool that can describe the experience regarding the patient care decision-making in practice. Another significance of the study regarding patient care decision making is that the research has demonstrated the usefulness of reflective practice when improving the quality of healthcare. Reflective practice can also be used when fostering a positive workplace culture and to support or implement the practice in patient care decision making.

References

Chong, M.C. (2009). Is reflective practice a useful task for student nurses? Asian Nursing

Research, 3(2), 111-119.

Grove, S. K., Gray, J. R., & Burns, N. (2015). Understanding nursing research: Building an

evidence-based practice (6th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier/Saunders. Chapter 3 pp68-91

Lauren Caldwell, & Claudia C. Grobbel. (January 01, 2013). The Importance of Reflective

Practice in Nursing. International Journal of Caring Sciences, 6, 3, 319-326.