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Biomedical subjects

Judith A Floyd

Publications and source records attributed to Judith A Floyd.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

Presenting research to clinicians: strategies for writing about research findings.

Research is of little value to clinical practice if the findings are not appropriately integrated into that practice. While publishing the results of research is essential for translating findings into practice, Marilyn Oermann and colleagues suggest that work is not done until the findings are disseminated for use by clinicians and others who need the research results to guide their practice

Abstracting and Indexing↗

Comparison of Medical Subject Headings and text-word searches in MEDLINE to retrieve studies on sleep in healthy individuals.

OBJECTIVE: The objective was to investigate the performance of two search strategies in the retrieval of primary research papers containing descriptive information on the sleep of healthy people from MEDLINE. METHODOLOGY: Two search strategies-one based on the use of only Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), the second based on text-word searching-were evaluated as to their specificity and sensitivity in retrieving a set of relevant research papers published in the journal Sleep from 1996 to 2001 that were preselected by a hand search. RESULTS: The subject search provided higher specificity than the text-word search (66% and 47%, respectively) but lower sensitivity (78% for the subject search versus 88% for the text-word search). Each search strategy gave some unique relevant hits. CONCLUSIONS: The two search strategies complemented each other and should be used together for maximal retrieval. No combination of MeSH terms could provide comprehensive yet reasonably precise retrieval of relevant articles. The text-word searching had sensitivity and specificity comparable to the subject search. In addition, use of text words "normal," "healthy," and "control" in the title or abstract fields to limit the final sets provided an efficient way to increase the specificity of both search strategies.

Abbreviations as Topic↗

Individual determinants of research utilization: a systematic review.

CONTEXT: In order to design interventions that increase research use in nursing, it is necessary to have an understanding of what influences research use. OBJECTIVE: To report findings on a systematic review of studies that examine individual characteristics of nurses and how they influence the utilization of research. SEARCH STRATEGY: A survey of published articles in English that examine the influence of individual factors on the research utilization behaviour of nurses, without restriction of the study design, from selected computerized databases and hand searches. INCLUSION CRITERIA: Articles had to measure one or more individual determinants of research utilization, measure the dependent variable (research utilization), and evaluate the relationship between the dependent and independent variables. The studies also had to indicate the direction of the relationship between the independent and dependent variables, report a P-value and the statistic used, and indicate the magnitude of the relationship. RESULTS: Six categories of potential individual determinants were identified: beliefs and attitudes, involvement in research activities, information seeking, professional characteristics, education and other socio-economic factors. Research design, sampling, measurement, and statistical analysis were examined to evaluate methodological quality. Methodological problems surfaced in all of the studies and, apart from attitude to research, there was little to suggest that any potential individual determinant influences research use. CONCLUSION: Important conceptual and measurement issues with regard to research utilization could be better addressed if research in the area were undertaken longitudinally by multi-disciplinary teams of researchers.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗

Sleep and aging.

Synthesis of studies of sleep and aging show major increases occur in nighttime awakening and major decreases occur in sleep depth over the life span. Fatigue and drowsiness during the day, with increased napping, and earlier bedtimes, are also prevalent in the elderly. Interventions that impact these sleep variables, as well as sleep variables that change less dramatically, are needed. All indications are that the promotion of restorative sleep and daytime well-being in older adults will continue to be an important part of nursing practice affecting even more people as the population ages. Although nurses have only begun to identify and study interventions that promote sleep in nursing environments, nursing is in a position to make major contributions to the health and well-being of older adults who experience sleep disruption, especially sleep disruptions secondary to illness and aging.

Aged↗

Outcomes research: an essential component of the advanced practice nurse role.

More research is needed that focuses on the effectiveness of nursing interventions in clinical settings. Advanced practice nurses are in the best position to conduct these studies, given their clinical expertise, access to subjects, master's-level research education, and need to demonstrate the effectiveness of their own care practices. This article describes how to develop outcomes studies and to use and disseminate the findings. Advanced practice nurses are encouraged to develop and replicate outcomes studies and to broadly disseminate findings to build the evidence base needed to support advanced practice in nursing.

Humans↗

Brief reports for disseminating systematic reviews to nurses.

Much has been written about the importance of using research findings to guide nursing practice. How to best disseminate those findings to nurses remains a challenge. In many clinical settings, nurses interested in research utilization and evidence-based practice retrieve, review, and integrate knowledge from research reports to guide decisions about best practices. Major barriers to this approach, however, are staff nurses' lack of time, expertise, and resources for this process. One approach to overcoming these barriers is to disseminate the results of systematic research reviews directly to nurses in the form of brief reports, written in an easy-to-understand style, and sent via e-mail. This article describes the development of brief reports as a strategy for disseminating the results of systematic reviews to staff nurses. To demonstrate the use of brief reports for this purpose, we chose a systematic review published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗