Conducting a literature search is a major step towards acquiring the required information to be used in carrying out a particular research. This study dwelt much on locating scholarly quantitative and qualitative articles that provided information on how to address the clinical problem which in this case was the strategies that will have to be employed in tackling ventilator-associated pneumonia. I focused much on the use of authoritative nursing databases like PubMed online (King et al., 2016). Also, I made use of search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and Google Scholar in getting the required articles. I however narrowed down to using Google and Google Scholar since I was not very familiar with Bing and yahoo.
The first step in conducting my literature search was identifying the key terms in the process. My primary areas of focus were terms like prevention of ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP), the use of VAP bundles and antibiotics in preventing VAP In critical care units (Cheung & Vijayakumar, 2016). I further narrowed down my literature search to focus on qualitative and quantitative articles published in the English language. My first search results on PubMed Online regarding the prevention of ventilator associated pneumonia provided me with 1,862 articles on how to address the condition. When I searched for research articles on the prevention of VAP by use of Google scholar, I found 77,300 items. Narrowing down to the previous year and specifically using quantitative articles that address the prevention of VAP using antibiotics, I found 1,500 articles. By specifically focusing on quantitative articles on the effectiveness of VAP bundles versus antibiotics in dealing with the condition in the critical care unit, the items found were 149 in the year 2015. The number further reduced to 29 in 2016.
The challenges I encountered when conducting the literature search was dealing with large volumes of information correctly when using Google scholar to locate the articles (Chen, et al., 2016). I however overcame this challenge by refining the search terms and focusing more on articles published from 2015 onwards. In my future searches, I will consult with the school librarian on how to go about locating the sources.
References
Chen, D. T. V., Wang, Y. M., & Lee, W. C. (2016). Challenges confronting beginning researchers in conducting literature reviews. Studies in Continuing Education, 38(1), 47-60.
Cheung, M. W. L., & Vijayakumar, R. (2016). A Guide to Conducting a Meta-Analysis. Neuropsychology review, 1-8.
King, M. T., Grover, D. L., Kushler, C. A., & Stafford-Fraser, J. Q. (2016).U.S. Patent No. 9,268,852. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
