University of Saint Augustine for Health Sciences

NUR7050: Evidence-Based Practice for Healthcare Professionals

NOTE: An abstract is not required

NOTE: This is a template and guide. Delete all highlighted materials.

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Synthesis of the Literature

Synthesize your final primary quantitative research studies and/or systematic reviews; do not include summary articles such as a review of the literature, a clinical article, or a clinical practice guidelines. This section is all about the scientific evidence rather than someone else’s opinion of the evidence. Refer the reader to your evidence table(s). See Table 1 and 2. Do not use secondary sources; you need to get the article, read it, and make your own decision about quality and applicability to your question even if you did find out about the study in a review of the literature. The studies that you cite in this section must relate directly to your PICOT question. This is a synthesis (Table 3) rather than a study-by-study review. Address the similarities, differences, and controversies in the body of evidence.

Practice Recommendations

So. . . using available best evidence, what is the answer to your question? This section is for you to summarize the strength of the body of evidence (quality, quantity, and consistency), make a synthesis statement, and, based on your conclusions drawn from your review of the body of evidence related to your clinical question, give a recommendation for practice change. This would logically be the intervention of your PICOT question. You might want to design an algorithm and include it in as a figure. Perhaps you found substantiation for usual practice, and you recommend reinforcement and education regarding this best practice. Using Johns Hopkins, identify whether this recommendation be graded A, B, or C based on the strength of the evidence.

References

Remember that this is a reference list rather than a bibliography. A bibliography is everything you read to prepare the paper but a reference list is only what you cited. If there is not a citation for a reference, it should not be here. PLEASE make sure that your references and your citations throughout the paper are in APA format. You can go from an A paper to a B paper on APA errors alone. Take the time to make sure that they are correct. We have already formatted the paper for you with this template.

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Table 1

Primary Quantitative Research Evidence (this table may be single space and 10-point font; ONLY primary quantitative research articles should be in this table) Example provided.

Legend: (all abbreviations and acronyms used in the table should be listed here such as: )

Table 2

Evidence Summaries (this table may be single space and 10 point font; ONLY systematic reviews should be in this table) (Example provided)

Legend: (all abbreviations and acronyms used in the table should be listed here)

Table 3.

Synthesis Matrix (identify the trends; this table may be single space and 10 point font; ONLY primary quantitative research articles or systematic reviews should be in this table; use only the highest level and quality of evidence; if the evidence is of mixed level or mixed quality, sort the trends using the Johns Hopkins Appendix H; trends must be related to the outcome) (example provided regarding effective pain management which may or may not be within your scope of practice- make sure your PICOT is within your scope of practice.)

Figure 1

Results of Search for Research

Use to generate a diagram describing the results of your search. Paste it here.