Level of Evidence Description of Subjects and Sample Size

After you have defined your PICOT question and identified your patient care issue, you can begin and the first part of your quality improvement (QI) project. In order to do this you will need to do a literature search to find evidence for your topic. Once you have found the evidence in the literature, construct a table of evidence from studies relevant to your topic that you have found from your literature search. In general, you should limit your literature search to articles and major reviews which have been published during the last five years. There should be a minimum of six articles reviewed and you can include systematic reviews. The columns in the table should include the following:

Title, journal in which the study was published, year it was published
Type of study (refer to the table on page 62 of this article)
The research question or hypothesis
The study methodology
The level of the evidence (refer to )
Description of the subjects and sample size
Major findings from the study
Additional resources can be found at the following website. (Health Sciences Library, 2012 Evidence-Based Practice Tools) http://libguides.hsl.washington.edu/ebptools.

Please refer to the following reading in week 1 Presentation, AACN 2012 Levels of Evidence:

Peterson, M. H., Barnason, S., Donnelly, B., Hill, K., Miley, H., Riggs, L., & Whiteman, K. (2014). Choosing the Best Evidence to Guide Clinical Practice: Application of AACN Levels of Evidence. Critical Care Nurse, 34(2), 58-68

Here is an example of how to construct a table of evidence:

Authors Names, Source, and Year

Type of Study

Research Question/Hypothesis

Methodology/

Study Design

Level of Evidence Description of Subjects and Sample Size
Major Findings

Jones and Smith, Nursing Research 2012

Descriptive study about nurses in critical care units who smoke.

Do nurses in critical care smoke more than nurses in medical surgical unit?

Mailed survey of hospital employees at a large university setting

150 nurses

in critical care,150 nurses in med/surg,

80% female between ages of 25-45

There was no significant difference in smoking based on the unit worked.

Your assignment will be graded with the following rubric.

Due Date
Sep 16, 2018 11:59 PM
Hide Rubrics
Rubric Name: Assignment #2: Summary Table – Levels of Evidence
This table lists criteria and criteria group name in the first column. The first row lists level names and includes scores if the rubric uses a numeric scoring method.
Criteria
Level 3
Level 2
Level 1
Research Data
20 points
(13-20 points)

Title, type of study, research question, and methods are provided for all articles.

12 points
(6-12 points)

Title, type of study, research question, and methods are provided for some articles

5 points
(0-5 points)

Title, type of study, research question, and methods are not provided for most articles

/ 20
Study Description
20 points
(13-20 points)

The description of the study discusses sample size and participants explicitly, clearly, and succinctly.

12 points
(6-12 points)

The description of the study discusses sample size and/or participants somewhat clearly.

5 points
(0-5 points)

The description of the study does not discuss sample size or participants.

/ 20
References
20 points
(13-20 points)

Paper contains more than five reference citations

12 points
(6-12 points)

Paper contains at least three reference citations.

5 points
(0-5 points)

Paper contains a reference citation.

/ 20
Organization and Writing
10 points
(7-10 points)

The paper is well organized, easy to read, and free of grammatical and syntax errors.

6 points
(3-6 points)

The paper is organized, easy to read, and has minor grammatical and syntax errors and contains no more than a few typographical errors.

2 points
(0-2 points)

The paper is organized, somewhat easy to read, and contains no more than one or two grammatical and syntax errors.

/ 10
Study Findings
30 points
(21-30 points)

Paper has an outstanding discussion of each study’s major findings as in the table presented in (AACN’s Levels of Evidence).

20 points
(10-20 points)

Paper has a good discussion of each study’s major findings as in the table presented in (AACN’s Levels of Evidence).

9 points
(0-9 points)

Paper lacks discussion of each study’s major findings as in the table presented in (AACN’s Levels of Evidence).

/ 30