Critiquing nursing research

Through the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) code of professional conduct (NMC, 2004) nurses supply high standards of care to patients and clients. One code nurses adhere to is clause 6 which pronounces nurses must maintain professional knowledge and competence, have a responsibility to deliver care based on current evidence, best practice and validated research (NMC, 2004). Validated research involves critiquing and acquiring the skills of synthesis and critical analysis, this enables nurses to distinguish the relationship between theory and practice in nursing (Hendry & Farley 1998).

This assignment will critique the research paper "Patients' case - notes: look but don't touch" written by Bebbington, Parkin, James, Chichester and Kubiak (2003) (Appendix 1) using Benton and Comack's (2000) framework (Appendix 2). This was selected because of the publicity that surrounds hospital acquired infection (Barrett, 2005).

TitleThe framework suggests the title should be concise, informative, clearly specify the content and indicate the research approach.

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English: Source - Nursing and Midwifery Council, h...

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The title of the paper is concise; however it gives no information of content or research subject. Moreover the research approach is unidentified consequently the reader is unsure what kind of research has been performed, perhaps an alternate title could have been "Case notes, do they pass infection: A quantitative study". This may indicate that the authors have not used a standard format which Benton (2000) states reports should follow; nevertheless the title captured the imagination of the reader and warrants further reading.

AuthorsAccording to the framework, the author(s) should possess appropriate academic and professional qualifications and experience; this according to Carter & Porter (2000) establishes integrity. The qualifications and experiences of the authors are not documented. This could indicate the authors have no relevant qualifications or experiences in this field. However further reading identifies where the authors work which could be relevant to their...