Health Care Case

Research Article Critique

Strengths & Weaknesses

Health care is a dynamic and forever changing field, and the professionals working within the health care field are not any different. Initial and continuing education is necessary to provide relevant and current nursing care. Critiquing research is one way to expand understanding of a subject, and ultimately make changes in practice in response to the current research knowledge obtained from studies. Additionally, nurses becoming a part of the research and critique process will often provide a background for conducting further study (Burns & Grove, 2007).

Two articles describing two different research studies were examined by the writers of this article. One was a qualitative study regarding what nursing care was regularly missed on medical-surgical units as well as the reasons for missed care. The other study was a quantitative study to compare one behavioral counseling session with five behavioral counseling sessions in the effectiveness of increasing moderate-intensity physical activity, muscle strengthening, and stretching activities in older women. In the following paragraphs, the critiquing process will be used to evaluate the articles and corresponding research study.

Problems and Purposes

In the qualitative study, the missed nursing care and the regret, guilt, and frustration that followed the nurses was reported as the problem. Kalisch clearly stated that “the purpose of this study was to determine nursing care regularly missed on medical-surgical units and reasons for missed care” (Kalisch, 2007, p. 306). Although the focus group interviews provided open discussion of the reported problem, it led to a fairly big database. Nine elements of missed care and seven themes of why care was missed were identified. Further research in each of