My Evaluation to Hospital Nurses’ Perception of The Geriatric Nurse Practice Environment Article

In the following paragraphs I will be providing a critique of the quantitative article entitled Hospital Nurses’ Perception of the Geriatric Nurse Practice Environment (Boltz, 2008). The details below will be based on the criteria presented to us for review in the Step-by-Step Guide to Critiquing Research – Part 1: Quantitative Research (Coughlin, 2007). These guidelines have provided me with the basis to properly critique this article in all aspects. Included in the critique will be the following components; Title, Hypothesis, Research Design, Introduction, Method, Results, and Overall view of entire article. Each portion must be critiqued individually, and then combined as a whole.

When reviewing the title of the article Hospital Nurses’ Perception of the Geriatric Nurse Practice Environment published in the 2008 Journal of Nursing Scholarship (Boltz, 2008), I believe that this title clearly states the purpose of the information provided in the article, and provides clear direction as to what will be covered in the article. The title is clear and concise and would provide appropriate results for nurses researching for an article on this topic. I believe that the author has accomplished appropriately the standards of a well written title in his/her article.

The authors listed for this article, have clearly provided information as to their qualifications for the basis of writing this article and their ability to properly gather the information required for this type of research article. While we have learned that the merits of the article cannot just be assumed to be correct based on the author’s credentials we are able to use these to develop a sense of their experience and how it relates to the topic shown. These authors appear to have the appropriate qualification and experience necessary for this article to be accepted as accurate and worthy of research use.

When reviewing the abstract that the authors have provided for this article, I do not feel that it gives enough significant information to inform me properly of the article contents and the path that the article takes. The abstract when read does not supply enough significance in order to determine if this article is capable of providing me enough insight and information on the topic directed by the title. With a few additional sentences I believe the author could drastically improve the abstract of the article and draw additional nurses, readers, researchers, to their article which may contain useful information for their research as it relates to the Geriatric Nurse Environment in the hospital.

While the hypothesis of quantitative research article is closely related to the abstract and may at times be interchangeable in some fashion when providing information for the researcher, or reader this article does not utilize a clear cut hypothesis and due to the nature of the short and condensed abstract I do not feel that this category of critique has been met or designed properly in this article. With the shortened abstract I feel that it is required to have a more in depth hypothesis to provide the reader, researcher, and nurse with additional information for a quick condensed read to determine if this article can provide useful information for their required use. Hypothesis of the article should give a broad overview of what is included in the article and what can be gained from reading or utilizing the article for research.

One of the most vital parts to any type of article, but especially for a quantitate research article is that as it relates to the research design that is being used to formulate and develop the article, and affects how and by whom it may used to gain knowledge on the topic that is being researched. Too often it is found that authors to not fully think about how their article will be utilized and how this affects the research design and method that would be most useful in providing the end user with the information in a format that they need. In this article the research and findings were collected from responses that were submitted by direct care registered nurses in facilities that offer Geriatric Patient Care, however does not specify if these responses are from nurses that actually have provide Geriatric Patient Care or just been exposed to the environment in the facility. Also research for this piece was gathered by the secondary analysis of data collected from the New York University Hartford Institute. It is unclear based on the data provided as relates to this facility whether the New York University Hartford Institute provides geriatric care, or has geriatric nurses on staff at its facility. While I find that the type of research collected is appropriate for this type of study, and direct responses can definitely provide information on the perception by nurses’ as it relates to the geriatric nurse practice environment, I would be curious to have the information on how many of these nurses have actually provided geriatric care or have just been exposed to the environment since there assigned facility provides this type of care. I believe that the information on perception of geriatric care can vary greatly if coming from a nurse who actually provides this type of care versus those who have only been exposed to the geriatric nursing environment.

The methodologies used in the preparation of the article appear based on the reading to be extensive and information that is provided supports the information that is in the article. However when reading the information in relation to the methodologies that were used I feel that it is a bit confusing and may not be understood completely if someone was utilizing this article that did not have direct contact in the type of geriatric environment that is being discussed. The methodologies used in the study seem to provide a wide range of types and should be adequate in providing research studies and quantitate data that is accurate in all aspects of geriatric nursing care.

Also considered in this evaluation is that of the ethical element as related to the information provided in the research article and how collection practices were handled to provide ethical balance between providing extensive amounts of information but maintain the ethical requirement that no harm to patients or nurses has been committed while collecting the required data and that all HIPPA requirements have been met while evaluating and analyzing the secondary data that was collected from nurses about the geriatric environment. While it is evident that this article is solely to provide the nurses’ perception of the geriatric nursing environment in a facility, it is necessary to realize that this type of information has or would have involved the care, or the observation of patients being cared for on the geriatric floor of the facility. Based on the credentials of the authors and those involved that provided data for the completion of this article I feel that they would be versed and familiar enough in the necessary procedures to assure that all ethical components have been met.

The article appears to utilize the non-experimental design type of research allowing the information to be developed as well as provide for the possibility of further research and additional articles based on the tentative information that was analyzed and segmented to provide the research in the article, could also be further evaluated and provide further research. This type of research also allows the relationship to be compared between nurses and how they perceive the geriatric care nursing in their facilities. Their opinions while not stated directly in the article may involve them comparing their observations and opinions of the typical nursing environment and the similarities and differences between “normal” nursing and the “geriatric” nursing environment.

Also noted in the article is information that clearly explains to users that not included in the data that is presented is the “measure of influence on organizational support on patient outcomes” including satisfaction and clinical measures. While I realize that in research articles we cannot always provide research and information in all areas that are associated with the subject discussion in this article, I feel that this type of feedback and research is crucial to providing the entire image of the nurses’ perception of the geriatric nursing environment. Also discussed is that there may be a biased presented in the article of facilities that are providing high quality geriatric care in their opinion versus those that may not have been perceived as providing the highest level of care to the geriatric patients (Boltz, 2007)? While we as human all realize that these types of biases exist when sampling opinions it is necessary to ensure that these types of issues are handled appropriately in our research and that we are able to solidify the information that is being provided in our research to not include these type of statistics.

Overall the article provided good insight into the opinion of nurses’ as it relates to the geriatric nursing care environment. There was some question based on the data presented and the information provided from the author as to whether the opinions that were critiqued in the article would be influenced based on the knowledge level of the nurse and the geriatric care environment and whether or not influence was also solicited based on the facility where the nurse practiced, and or witnessed geriatric care being provided to the patients. I believe more in depth information must be provided as to the criteria and the questions presented to the nurses in the data was collected by the New York University Hartford Institute. We are unclear as to what level of nurses were surveyed, questions asked, and if they had direct contact with geriatric patients. While the author may assume that the reader, researcher, and or nurse may make some of their own assumptions based on the information provided in the article, this type of article I feel is meant to provide information that can be utilized as stand-alone research and not open to interpretation.

While articles that are published in journals, such as this article in the Journal of Nursing Scholarship, must meet certain criteria to obtain their spot for publishing, the criteria involved when these are reviewed varies from between reviewers and the journals. While standards are in place these differences in criteria allow for the articles to be varied and provide a variety of writing styles, etc. to the researcher using the journal. We must though realize that when articles are reviewed by different people the same standards can be interpreted very differently and skew the results that we as the user receive when using or reading the article for research. The system is not full proof but has over the years developed a good basis for quality article to appear in journals that are readily used in our field of research.

The systematic approach to reading and critiquing an article and utilizing the basis of the lessons learned in this project can make selection of articles for your research and education to be much easier. In using these techniques and familiarizing yourself with the individual parts and components that are associated with a quantitative article, and knowing the true meaning and use of quantitative articles in your research can directly impact your ability to get the most out of the article, and limit selections to those articles that are most relevant to your research and needs. The ability to limit the amount of reading can help in ensuring that you as a researcher are able to dedicate your time to those articles that are most relevant to the research and information needed for your project.

Utilize the concepts provided in your learning and familiarize yourself with the different sections that should be clearly presented in the quantitative article so that you can provide the most appropriate research to your project. Overall in conclusion I feel that the article Hospital Nurses’ Perception of the Geriatric Nursing Care Environment provided conclusive and useful information in some aspects, but allowed room for the researcher to still need additional article and more information to get a clearer picture of the topic being discussed. I would not count this article as a “fail” but would utilize it as a secondary piece of research if needing information on the discussed topic of perception of geriatric nursing from the nursing base.