Nursing Research Critiques: A Model for Excellence

This is the first resource to provide APRN students and practicing clinicians with a step-by-step guide to critically analyze evidence from research studies. As part of a profession that relies on best evidence, nurses need to be able to effectively assess research articles. Equipped with these skills, nurses will lead an informed practice and improve patient care.

With 14 qualitative and quantitative studies, chapters use previously published research articles to demonstrate the actual critique process. This text delves past outlining the elements of critique to teach by example, walking the reader through every part of a research article, from the title to the conclusion, and highlighting specific queries that need to be answered to craft a strong critique. The research articles in this book offer a broad range of clinical areas and diverse methodologies to highlight the fundamental differences between qualitative and quantitative studies, their underlying paradigms, and relative strengths and weaknesses. With a consistent, robust critiquing template, this content can easily be applied to countless additional research studies.

• Comprises the only text to offer research critiques in nursing
• Provides actual examples of critiques of published research papers by experienced nurse researchers and educators
• Showcases a diverse range of research studies
• Structures critiques consistently to enable replication of the process
• Useful to hospitals, especially those with Magnet® certification

Karen Bauce, DNP, MPA, RN, NEA-BC, is associate dean for Graduate Online Programs and assistant clinical professor in the MSN Online Program at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, where she teaches a variety of courses, including research.

Joyce J. Fitzpatrick, PhD, MBA, RN, FAAN, FNAP, FAANP(H), is Director of the Marian K. Shaughnessy Nurse Leadership Academy and Elizabeth Brooks Ford Professor of Nursing, Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing, Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) in Cleveland, Ohio, where she was dean from 1982 through 1997. In 2020 she was named Distinguished University Professor at CWRU. She earned a BSN (Georgetown University), an MS in psychiatric-mental health nursing (The Ohio State University), a PhD in nursing (New York University), and an MBA from CWRU. Dr. Fitzpatrick has received numerous honors and awards; she was elected a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing in 1981, a fellow in the National Academies of Practice in 1996, and an honorary fellow of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners in 2019. She received the American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Award 22 times. Dr. Fitzpatrick is widely published in nursing and health care literature. She served as co-editor of the Annual Review of Nursing Research series, volumes 1–26; she previously edited  the journals Applied Nursing Research, Nursing Education Perspectives, and Archives of Psychiatric Nursing. She has published several books with Springer Publishing Company, including four editions of the classic Encyclopedia of Nursing Research (ENR).