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Importance of Nursing Research

In any professional field, research is necessary to advance and improve practices. Nursing is no different, and nursing research has the potential to revolutionize healthcare. Nurses with research skills are equipped for evidence-based practice to ensure better standards for caregiving.

Nurses provide direct care to their patients on a daily basis, so they know which approaches work well and which need adjusting. An essential trait of a caring, competent practitioner is questioning standard procedure and determining how to improve it. Nursing concerns are the heart of nursing research.

What Is Nursing Research?

According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, rigorous nursing research provides a body of knowledge that helps advance nursing practice. The findings of such scientific inquiry may also help shape health policy and contribute to global healthcare. Nursing professionals are committed to the health and well-being of everyone. The research they conduct often has lasting impacts.

The National Institute of Nursing Research says that nursing research uncovers knowledge to build the foundation of clinical practice and reinforce the following:

  • Prevent disease and disability.
  • Manage symptoms of illness.
  • Enhance end-of-life care.

According to the website Nursing World, nurses use research to effect positive outcomes for their patients and for others within the healthcare system. As patients’ needs become more complex and healthcare systems become more varied, nurses use evidence-based care by incorporating their own nursing research with their professional experience and a patient’s preferences. Nurses may conduct their own research, use research in their everyday practice and teach others using existing research.

Scientific Inquiry

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing uses three classifications of nursing research. These include clinical research, nursing education research and health systems and outcomes research. Clinical research looks at care for individuals across the spans of their entire lives, and nurses can carry out this research in any clinical setting. Nursing education research examines how students learn the nursing profession. Finally, health systems and outcomes research focuses on the quality, quantity and costs of healthcare services, including how to improve the delivery of care. These three areas provide the full scope of nursing research.

Research Is an Important Part of Nursing Education

Nurses teach, organize community health, work in business, and of course, work in the clinical setting. Research is important for all of these areas, and nurses should be a part of that research.

Research and scientific inquiry also help students develop analytical thinking and problem-solving skills. If they observe a consistent pattern of a practice, procedure or method that helps patients, they can pursue those discoveries and either conduct or propose a study on those issues. It does not mean they need to act like lab assistants or constantly look for ways to change things; it means that they have the power to approach their jobs with a critical eye.

Nursing research is vital to improving healthcare delivery and outcomes. Understanding the research process helps nurses approach any job with critical thinking skills.

This is one of the reasons that Magnet hospitals seek nurses with BSNs. Even in clinical positions, nurses who can focus on issues with a critical eye and employ creative problem-solving strategies in difficult situations are in demand. Because clinical situations present many difficult problems and decisions, research and analytical skills help nurses perform clinical duties better.

The Role of Nurses in Research

BSN-prepared nurses can work as members of research teams to coordinate and manage research, collect data, ensure the well-being of study participants, and present at conferences. In other words, they can take a central role in the research process.

Nurses perhaps have the most intimate understanding of patients’ various physical, emotional and socioeconomic needs. This knowledge gives them a unique perspective as researchers; it allows them to ask pertinent research questions and analyze data that will specifically improve patient health and wellbeing.

Nurses with advanced research skills can continue to advocate and care for patients by designing and assisting with scientific studies. The findings from these studies have positive and immediate effects on different populations, including minorities, school-aged children and the elderly. Nursing research provides an opportunity for nurses to use their scientific skills while continuing to serve the immediate needs of their patients.

Research might take place in a clinical, university or community setting, with nurses studying ways to improve and streamline patient care. Health systems and outcomes research examines the availability and quality of healthcare services in a community and is vital to understanding and improving community health. Nursing education researchers study how students best learn nursing skills. Like any other researcher, they might start their careers as assistants, later developing and leading their own projects.

Clinical experience is vital to success as a nurse researcher, so students in online RN to BSN programs are particularly well-equipped to enter this field. They have experience with patients and may already have ideas about what works and what does not.

BSN-prepared nurses who enjoy research may also choose to enter the field of nursing research. Nurse researchers support and coordinate studies related to a wide range of clinical, community and education issues. Research organizations, pharma companies, teaching hospitals, and government agencies are some examples of job settings for nurse researchers. Whether in the hospital or public health environments, providers use this research to evaluate and improve healthcare for millions of people.

What is nursing about?

Increasingly, medicine and nursing are beginning to overlap. There is much talk of interprofessional training and multidisciplinary working, and nurses have been encouraged to adopt as their own some tasks traditionally undertaken by doctors. However, in their operation, practice, and culture, nursing and medicine remain quite different. The oft quoted suggestion is that doctors “cure” or “treat” and that nurses “care”, but this is not upheld by research. In a study of professional boundaries, the management of complex wounds was perceived by nurses as firmly within their domain. Nurses justified their claim to “control” wound treatment by reference to scientific knowledge and practical experience, just as medicine justifies its claim in other areas of treatment. One of the most obvious distinctions between the professions in this study was the contrast between the continual presence of the nurse as opposed to the periodic appearance of the doctor. Lawler raises the same point, and suggests that nurses and patients are “captives” together. Questioning the relevance of scientific knowledge, she argues that nurses and patients are “focused on more immediate concerns and on ways in which experiences can be endured and transcended”. This highlights the particular contribution of nursing, for it is not merely concerned with the body, but is also in an “intimate” and ongoing relationship with the person within the body. Thus nursing becomes concerned with “untidy” things such as emotions and feelings, which traditional natural and social sciences have difficulty accommodating. It is about the interface between the biological and the social, as people reconcile the lived body with the object body in the experience of illness.

How Does Nursing Research Help Patients And Communities?

Staying informed on the latest research enables patients — and the communities they are a part of — to take charge of their health. Research assists nurses with the following:

  • Developing cost-effective healthcare systems
  • Educating patients about illnesses and disabilities
  • Preventing health problems
  • Promoting well-being and healthy lifestyle choices
  • Providing care to patients over the lifespan
  • Meeting the needs of vulnerable populations through appropriate interventions
  • Teaching patients self-care and ways to manage health conditions

How Does Research In Nursing Aid Health Systems?

Research in nursing can benefit health systems in these ways:

  • Boosts access to care for vulnerable groups such as the elderly or homeless
  • Aids in developing cost-effective models for nursing care strategies
  • Helps identify social and environmental determinants of wellness in individuals, families and communities
  • Pinpoints phenomena that negatively influence recovery
  • Reduces the stress patients experience when undergoing surgical procedures, intrusive examinations or continuous monitoring

Role of Nursing Research in Online Programs

Students who enroll in online nursing programs may take courses in research that will help improve their skills. Courses in nursing research may introduce research design and analysis, giving the student a basis for learning how to examine, apply and utilize current knowledge. These courses also include evidence-based practice, and the student will receive an overview of current issues in knowledge development.

Today’s healthcare system is complex, and patients have increasingly varied needs. Developing solutions for the health issues of diverse populations requires providers with many different perspectives. Those enrolled in online nursing programs may become professionals who understand the need for nursing research and how to incorporate it into their own practice.

How do Nurses Manage 12 Hour Shifts

Nurses work long hours and have very demanding jobs, making it hard to manage a healthy exercise and eating plan. We preach healthy eating and exercise habits to our patients, but do we practice what we preach? What’s the best way to stay fit on 12 hour shifts?

So Nursing seems like the perfect fit for you. You can make a difference. You thrive in a fast-paced environment. You’re not squeamish, and you love caring for people. There’s just one problem—you’re not sure if you’re up for the 12-hour shift schedules many nurses work.

There are definitely challenges to this kind of schedule. You’ve seen the tired eye-bags and the comically large coffee cups. But you’ve also heard how great it can be—how much you can travel, volunteer and spend time with family on your days off. 

If you’re trying to decide whether 12-hour shifts are a deal-breaker, look no further. We talked to those who’ve done it before, and they explained the ups, downs and tips for making the most of it.

But first, you might have some questions about how 12-hour shifts even work for a weekly schedule. A look at the anatomy of a typical week with this kind of schedule might provide some helpful context.

Best Way to Stay Fit on 12 Hour Shift

1. Decide what time of the day you want to exercise.

Some people have enough energy to work out on the days they work, and others may need to workout on their days off. Decide if you are a morning workout person or an evening workout person. When I trained for half-marathons I found early morning runs were the best for me. I even ran before a 12 hour shift sometimes! Now that I’m a full-time grad student, work, and have clinicals 3-4 days a week, I’m more into the evening workouts. Either way, whatever works for you stick with it!

2. Find something you enjoy doing and be consistent. 

Exercise doesn’t have to be hardcore like the CrossFit or Insanity workout routines, but be sure to work up a sweat. Take your dog out on a long walk, participate in a Zumba class, or go outside and play with your kids. Make exercise fun and you won’t even realize you’re doing something healthy! As long as you are active 3-4 days a week you’ll reap the benefits of regular exercise.

3. Stay well hydrated throughout your day. 

If you’re anything like me you’ve probably had a few shifts where you don’t have time to drink, let alone pee during your shift. Make a few quick runs to the break room throughout the day to get a drink whenever you can. I’ve found that I do well with drinking a bottle of water before my shift begins, one at lunch, and one in the afternoon. That’s nowhere close to what I drink on my days off, but I don’t end my shift feeling completely dehydrated. Aim to get your weight in kilograms in ounces of water (e.g., A 60kg woman should drink 60 ounces of water daily).

4. Pack your lunch and resist the goodies at the nurse’s station. 

I’ve come to realize the food I bring from home is way healthier (and cheaper!) than the food offered in the cafeteria most days. In addition, if you stash something to snack on in your pocket like peanut butter crackers you’re less likely to grab that cookie Mrs. Smith’s family brought in for the staff that day. Believe me—eating every treat someone brings to the nurse’s station can add serious weight if you’re not careful.

5. Get plenty of sleep to recharge and de-stress. 

I know it’s hard to get a full 8 hours of sleep when you work 12+ on the days you work, but aim for at least 7 hours. Studies have linked lack of sleep to weight gain because of the ghrelin/leptin hormone imbalance. Ghrelin is the hormone that tells you when to eat and leptin is the hormone that tells you when to stop eating. When you’re sleep deprived your body produces more ghrelin and you may be more prone to grabbing a sweet treat for a quick energy boost, which eventually leads to weight gain.

6.  Get Yourself Organized

It may come as no surprise that working 3,12-hour shifts in a row doesn’t leave much time for well, anything.

You’re not only away from your family and friends for a solid three days, which can feel socially isolating, but you can’t get any of your jobs done quickly.

Why? The shops are closed, the call centers you need to contact to fix your issues close at 6 pm and you don’t finish till 7 pm and your friends don’t work your crazy schedule.

Instead of getting caught up or sad about this stuff, make time to do the important things before you start.

Here is where I would begin: 

  • Run your errands.
    Take in your dry cleaning, visit the bank (if you need the teller and it can’t be sorted out online), pay the bills (again if you have an issue you need to discuss) etc. Don’t put this stuff off because there is unlikely a 24-hour option for these services.
  • Straighten up around the house.
    Get out the vacuum and fill the mop bucket. Spend some time doing the housework to give yourself (and your family) a clean space to come home to. These mundane jobs usually get put on the back burner while you’re working, so lighten the load for later and do a bit now. It’s funny what a clean house can do to your headspace.
  • Minimalize your stuff.
    I recently watched an amazing documentary about minimalizing your life, your clothes, furniture and nick-nacks… When working 12-hour shifts, don’t clutter your brain with stuff you don’t use or need. It may be time for a clean out and man it can be SO refreshing!
  • Hitting the grocery store and getting organized socially
    We dive into in much more detail later in this post.

The disadvantages of working 12-hour shift schedules

Every job has its disadvantages, but as a nurse, they can range from inconvenient to just plain dangerous if you don’t manage them well. As you consider these points, take an honest inventory of your ability to navigate them.

Fatigue

Depending on whether you work day shift, night shift, or a rotating schedule, you may be more or less fatigued but fatigued none the less. Your feet will get sore, your body will ache, and by the end of the shift you’re probably not going to be up for much mental strain. If you’re working overnight shifts, you may also have trouble getting your sleep schedule adjusted—and the cumulative effects can be rough.

Long-term health risks

When you are working for 12 hours there is often little time before, during and after your shifts to eat healthy meals or exercise properly. This combined with fatigue and other adverse factors can result in some serious health risks including depression, anxiety and insomnia.

Nurses working these shifts should make a conscious effort to carve out time for self-care—perfectly healthy choices might not always be feasible on a shift day, so do your best to counterbalance it on off days.

Impact on your social life

Even if you love the schedule, having your days off fall in the middle of the week while most people are working traditional schedules means sometimes you’ll have limited windows of time to spend with others. Additionally, working at 24/7 healthcare facilities means you’re going to be scheduled for holidays and other times of the year where you may traditionally get to see family and friends—so you may have to make some compromises. 

Increased potential for errors

While fewer handoffs may reduce errors related to miscommunication, working longer shifts can also increase errors related to fatigue. A study by Health Affairs found that nurses were three times more likely to make a mistake when working 12.5-hour shifts or longer.

Erickson admits, “I really feel like care isn’t as good in hour 11 as it was in hour three.” While there are things hospitals can do to reduce these errors, mistakes are inevitable. This uncertainty can be one of the most difficult aspects of nursing. 

Small changes in your lifestyle can make a world of difference when you consistently incorporate them. These are just a few ways to keep fit while working 12 hour shifts. Take care of yourself so you can lead by example.

Get Excellent Nursing Research Proposal Writing Help

When you take up a nursing course, then you should expect so much workload. The academic work is to prove to the lecturers that they understand the course material. Nursing is a serious profession. What nursing research students do is ensure that they master the dosages and diagnoses which they’ll use in their nursing career.

A nursing research proposal is one of the academic documents that nursing students are required to submit before they can qualify to join the nursing profession. The purpose of such academic tasks is to enable the examiner to determine whether you have understood the course material to an extent that you are ready to make scholarly contributions in the field. It tests your ability to present your thoughts and conduct an organized research in a specific health-related topic of your choice. Writing a nursing research proposal in APA presents students with unimaginable challenges. Most students keep wondering who will write my nursing research proposal in APA. While some of them may have ideas of what they want to study, they find it difficult to put it down in writing because they have no such skills.

Although students may find it possible to write certain medical papers, a research proposal in the field has proved to be difficult to achieve. Instead of working with a task in which they do not have the expertise, nursing students should seek out the best APA research proposal to help them gain high qualifications in their examinations.

Nursing research generates knowledge to improve patient outcomes, refine health care policy and validate the nurse roles. Research proposal reflects the thinking and planning of a research. It articulates the abstract ideas of a worthwhile project and convinces others we have the ability to complete the project.

All research requires a written proposal before it is undertaken. Because the process of proposal writing ensures the researcher has thought about the topic and done sufficient preliminary reading. The researcher is able to provide all the key elements involved in the research process and include sufficient information for the readers to evaluate the proposed study.

Lionessays.com gives customized writing services for nursing and medical students that have been praised as reliable and high-quality in the past and current times. We have more than 150 native speakers, who can handle every nursing writing task in the United States and Europe. The firm was created to meet the growing needs of students for reliability and quality in the nursing sector.

This gap has paid off since most of the students with whom we have worked with are not only highly qualified university graduates, but they immediately joined the nursing profession. It will be easy for a prospective employer to view you as a potential scholar who contributes to the field of knowledge if you have an impressive nursing research paper.

A nursing student who lacks proper writing skills commits a forgivable sin; the one without the basic nursing skills does not deserve to be in the profession, even for one more day. Therefore, the student without writing skills but is passionate about caring for patients and the nursing profession should be assisted to attain his or her dream. Such students need nursing writing help because professors use written assignments such as research proposals to grade students, which determines whether they join the profession or not. It is obvious, therefore, that it is unfair to fail in becoming a nurse when you are passionate about helping patients and has acquired the necessary skills to do just that. If you ask us, we would advise you to go to seek help from experts in nursing writing services.

We can help you create and submit a brilliant research proposal, which encourages your professors to approve your research. Furthermore, if you are hoping to have someone fund your research, working with us puts you in a ‘one-foot-inside’ kind of situation because we know what funders of medical projects and proposals look for. Whether you are looking for partial help or full writing of your nursing research proposal in APA, we are ready to work with you throughout the course of writing the work. From giving you a research proposal outline format to helping you create the document from scratch, we are open to working with you throughout the writing process.

When you come to lionessays.com, we help you get the best APA healthcare research proposal. Also, you are able to work with a top writer of your choice to communicate with and clarify your instructions. Our expert team of writers has extensive knowledge of the industry and can help you in every type of writing, it doesn’t matter if you are a professional or a student.

We have writers who are committed to their work and they are always on demand because they have at least an undergraduate degree in nursing. So we are not recruiting average writers. In addition, we see an experienced writer in the nursing and nursing industries as being sure that he is aware of the dynamics in the field.

What does it mean for our potential customers? You don’t have to worry about an ability you do not have, put your focus on patients, and let us write your healthcare assignments. We are passionate, skilled and experienced writers, because we believe a student is only looking for help when they are stuck in APA nursing research, but they still want a high grade.

We are one of the only companies who think it is not right to buy the best proposal online for APA nursing research. Therefore, we encourage our customers to order nursing papers to avoid the last-minute despair that often forces them to buy pre-written nursing papers. We work from scratch on all papers to make sure that each customer receives a unique document to meet their needs.

Free APA project proposal template is available on lionessays.com to customers. The template can be used to learn how to work if you plan to write your proposals in the field of nursing. You can also look at our examples in our APA research proposal format before placing your order. This will give you an idea of what to expect. Below are reasons as to why you should consider our services:

Advantages of using our Services

1. Plagiarism free

A close look at the samples of nursing proposals which we provide our customers show how thorough our writer is with every order. They have thousands of sources which are based on the wisdom of the nursing proposal. In addition, we have a rigorous quality process, including editors, proofreaders and a software that checks plagiarism.

2. An APA nursing research proposal

Each order is treated exclusively because we believe every customer has different needs. Therefore, you can be sure that you will receive a paper that meets your expectations when you come to us with any research topic in nursing.

3. Unlimited revisions

As we write the best APA nursing research proposal for you, we value your feedback and opinion as well. So we allow an unlimited number of revisions.

4. 24 hours customer support

Do not spend most of your time wondering who’s going to help you do your assignment. Whether it is a proposal for a nursing project or any other nursing paper, contact our customer support team. They operate 24/7 and are ready to help you get the best support for APA research proposal.

5. Time Management

Academicwritersbureau.com knows that time is valuable to students and members of their faculty. We use all the resources that help our writers to complete your work within your deadline. We do not delay order delivery so as to give you enough time to study the research proposal before handing it in.

6. Original proposals

Some writing services amend nursing research proposals for previous projects and send them to their clients. Academic Writers Bureau creates proposals from scratch as we know that the uniqueness will make it stand out. Our writers are honest, but we still test the papers for originality using hi-tech software and upload it together with a plagiarism report for you to download both. We assure that you will not find someone else with a similar proposal as we do not copy complete work to other orders. Your writer will format the research proposal according to your requirements or guidelines by your college.

7. Customer satisfaction

Our happiness is to satisfy our clients. If you think that your nursing research is not sufficient, schedule a discussion with our writer for to clarify the issues and if necessary review the order free. If you want a writing service with a passion for quality and timeliness, Academicwrirtersbureau.com is the place to order your nursing research proposal.