Sources of nursing knowledge

1. Sources of nursing knowledge Tradition: The handling down of Knowledge from one generation to another leads to actions that occur because “we’ve always done it that way” certain “truths’’ are accepted as given.

2. Tradition • Advantages: • Each individual is not required to begin anew in an attempt to understand the world or certain aspects of it. • Facilitates communication by providing a common foundation of accepted “truth’’. • Disadvantages: Many traditions have never been evaluated for their validity. • Critical appraisal should be done to custom and tradition before accepting them as truth.

3. 2. Authority: Experts or authorities in a given filed often provide Knowledge for other people: - Limitations: based on personal experience.

4. 3. Experience and trial and error. - Experience; our own experiences represent a familiar and functional source of Knowledge. So, human beings must be able to learn about their environment form their experiences.

5. limitations:- • a) Each individual’s experiences may be too restricted to develop generalization. • b) the same objective event generally is experienced or perceived differently be two individuals “ colored by subjective values and prejudices”. • Trial and error: • Alternatives are tried until we find one that answer our questions or solves our problems. • Limitations:- - It is fallible and inefficient, haphazard and unsystematic “the goal was “if it works, we’ll use it”

6. 4-logical reasoning: logical thought processes. • - Combines experience, our systems of thought • There are two types of reasoning:- a- Inductive reasoning: is the process of developing generalizations from specific observations. b- Deductive reasoning: is the process of developing specific predictions from general principles.

7. Limitations: 1-The quality of Knowledge arrived at through inductive reasoning is highly inductive upon the representative-ness of the specific. Examples used as the basis for generalization. 2-Has no selfcorrection. 3-Deductive reasoning: not it self a source of new information. It is an approach to illuminating relationships as one proceeds from the general to the specific.

8. 5. Scientific Method: • The most objective & reliable source of nursing knowledge. • Has capacity for self evaluation. • Scientific research uses checks & balance which minimize the possibility that the researcher’s emotion or biases will affect the conclusions. • Uses empirical data, which are data gathered through the sense organs.

9. Ch.Ch. of the scientific approach: • Order & control. • Empiricism: • Finding of a scientific investigation to be grounded in reality rather than in the personal biases or beliefs of the researcher. • Evidence rooted in objective reality & gathered directly or indirectly through the human senses. 3.Generalization: Generalizability of research findings is an important criterion for assessing the quality of investigation.

10. A purposes of scientific research • Description:- the description of phenomena. • Exploration: pursues the question:- what factors influence, affect, cause, or relate to this phenomenon. • Explanation:- • Prediction and Control: - Use scientific approach to make reliable predictions, and to develop control mechanisms.

11. Limitations of the scientific method: • Expensive, time consuming • Moral or ethical problems • Human complexity • Measurement problems • Control problems - To control factors that are not under direct investigation.

12. Ethical considerations in scientific research • Informed consent • Freedom from harm • Privacy, Anonymity andconfidentiality.

13. Reasons for conducting nursing research:- • Improvement in nursing care. • Growth of the Nursing profession. • Accountability for nursing practice. • Documentation of the cost-effectiveness of nursing care.

14. Basic Research Terminology • A study, investigation, or a research project. • -Subjects (sometimes abbreviated as ss) or the study participants: the people who are being studied. • -Respondents or, sometimes, informants: when the subjects provide information to the researchers.

15. Researcher ,investigator, or scientist :is the person who undertakes the research. • Principal investigator or project director; the main person directing the investigation when a study is under taken by a research team.

16. Concepts:- • - Conceptualization refers to the process of developing and refining abstract ideas. • Scientific research .Is almost always concernedwith abstract rather than tangible phenomena.

17. Variables:- - Within the context of a research investigation, concepts are referred to as variables. • Is something that varies or differs from one person to another. • All research activity is aimed at trying to understand how or why things vary and to learn how differences in one variable are related to differences in another.

18. Attribute variables: are often inherent ch.ch. Such as age, blood type, health beliefs. • Heterogeneity: when an attribute is extremely varied in the group under study, the group is said to be heterogeneous with respect to that variable.

19. Homogeneity:when the members of the group are highly similar to one another with respect to that variable, the group is described as homogeneous. • Demographic variables:- • Are ch. ch or attributes of the subject that are collected to describe the sample.

20. Dependent variables and Independent variables. • Independent variable Presumed cause. • Dependent variablepresumed effect. • Variability in the dependent variable is presumed to depend on variability in the independent variable.

21. The dependent variable is the variable the researcher is interested in understanding explaining, or predicating. • Dependent is the response, behaviors or out come that the researcher wants to predict or explain.

22. The dependent variable is the “effect’’ or the variable that is influenced by the researcher’s manipulation (Control) of the independent variable. • The designation of a variables as independent or dependent is a function of the role that the variable plays in a particular investigation.

23. Operational Definitions: • The researcher usually clarifies and define the variable under investigation. • The definition must specify how the variable will be observed and measured in the actual research situation. • It is a specification of the operations that the researcher must perform to collect the required information.

24. This operational definition clearly indicated to both the investigator and to the consumer what is meant by the variable weight. • Precision in defining the terms has the advantage of communicating exactly what the terms mean. -Data:- singular, datum) Are the pieces of information obtained in the course of the investigation

25. Relationship:- • Refers to a bond or connection between two variables or more. • Example: • Height: taller people will weigh more than shorter people. • Metabolism: the lower a person’s metabolic rate, the more he or she will weigh. • Caloric intake: people with higher caloric intake will be heavier than those with lower caloric intake. • Exercise: the greater the amount of exercise, the lower the person’s weight.

26. Variables can be related to one another in different ways: • Cause – and – effect (or causal relationships).( as natural phenomena) – eating more calories causes weight gain. • Functional relationship • Control • Research control attempts to eliminate any contaminating factors that might obscure the relationship between the variables that are of central interest.

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