Is this a quantitative or qualitative research article?
Fine, Herr, Titler, Sanders, Cavanaugh, Swegle & Reyes (2010) utilize a qualitative approach that in their bid to make a detailed report of a cancer pain management tool based on collected evidence and expert analysis.
What are the problem and purpose of the research article?
Pain management for cancer patients is described as one of the priority issues that the clinical team has to explore. Medicare hospice programs recognize the importance of pain management for cancer patients and it is one of the measurable elements on which the quality of life of the patient is measured. For older patients with the pain assessment and management tools are expected to be tailored to their specific age-specific needs and while there have been significant developments in the development of clinical practice guidelines, there still lacks a tool that can be utilized within clinical settings to guide the care team (Herr et al., 2010). Utilizing the specific clinical records of physicians and nurses, it is possible to identify their adherence to the pain assessment and management and in that respect identify those areas where the nurses and physicians seem to overlook. At this point, the researchers or experts sought to utilize this evidence to develop a tool that can help cover for the apparent gaps in assessment and management of pain in older patients and subsequently used to optimize the outcomes (Melnyk, & Fineout-Overholt, 2015).
What are the hypotheses or research questions/objectives of the study?
While the researchers have not specifically identified or set out the objectives of the research, the abstract and introduction section significantly explore the patient issue and thus give an implied perspective of the objectives (Stillwell, Fineout-Overholt, Melnyk & Williamson, 2010). In this case, it is notable that the implied or intended research objectives include the need to report the findings of the expert review that sought to create a reliable and valid tool that can suitably be utilized to facilitate evaluation of nurses and physicians adherence to the set out pain management guidelines. The researchers indicated that such a tool can be utilized to consolidate a score for the levels of adherence and thus initiate quality improvement within hospice care for elderly adults.
What methods of data analysis were used?
Fine, Herr, Titler, Sanders, Cavanaugh, Swegle & Reyes (2010) utilized a randomized, controlled study to collect evidence and based their analysis on descriptive statistics of the clinical records of nurses and physicians.
Were they appropriate to the design and hypotheses?
The descriptive design based on primary data was suitable for this study in that the researchers considering that the focus of the study was to develop a specific tool that would address a question within a problem that has not been explored in detail in the past. The lack of primary evidence within the same scope meant that the only primary evidence could be sought and the importance of a randomized controlled study followed by a descriptive statistics design was the best option to fully accomplish the objectives defined (Tappen, 2011).
What results were obtained from data analysis? Is sufficient information given to interpret the results of data analysis?
Based on the evidence and data collected and analyzed, the researchers came up with a total of 48 evidence-based indicators. These were then subjected to the review of 17 experts who were required to make independent analysis of the indicators and chose a maximum of 10 Indicators that could be regarded as the Key Indicators. Combining the results of the experts, the Cancer Pain Practice Index (CPPI) for the elderly was developed with 10 Key Indicators to allow for evaluation and comparative assessment of the nurses and physicians in hospice care (Fine, Herr, Titler, Sanders, Cavanaugh, Swegle & Reyes, 2010).
References
Fine, P., Herr, K., Titler, M., Sanders, S., Cavanaugh, J., Swegle, J., & Reyes, J. (2010). The cancer pain practice index: A measure of evidence-based practice adherence for cancer pain management in older adults in hospice care. Journal of pain and symptom management, 39(5), 791-802.
Herr, K., Titler, M., Fine, P., Sanders, S., Cavanaugh, J., Swegle, J., & Tang, X. (2010). Assessing and treating pain in hospices: current state of evidence-based practices. Journal of pain and symptom management, 39(5), 803-819.
Melnyk, B. M., & Fineout-Overholt, E. (2015). Evidence-based practice in nursing and healthcare: A guide to best practice (3rd ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Stillwell, S. B., Fineout-Overholt, E., Melnyk, B. M., & Williamson, K. M. (2010). Evidence-based practice, step by step: asking the clinical question: a key step in evidence-based practice. AJN The American Journal of Nursing,110(3), 58-61.
Tappen, R. M. (2011). Advanced nursing research: From theory to practice. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
