Literature Review and Synthesis: A Guide for Nurses and Other Healthcare Professionals

Awarded first place in the 2022 AJN Book of the Year Awards in Nursing Research

This innovative text helps nursing students and working nurses to master the essential skill of synthesizing diverse forms of literature to inform research, practice, and policy in Nursing and the Health Science disciplines. Focusing on the significance of synthesis as a critical component of the literature review process, this book walks readers through each step of completing an exemplary literature review and synthesis. The text provides detailed guidance to each of the rigorous steps needed to design, execute, and synthesize the results of a literature review.

This book focuses on the literature review process intended to inform research, quality improvement efforts, clinical practice, and healthcare policy decisions, with discussion of how literature reviews and syntheses inform public conversation. Designed to simplify a complex topic, the text is also a platform for discussing the rapidly expanding need for rigorous literature review approaches across diverse settings and professional groups. Concise formatting, objectives, step-by-step instructions, publication example, activities, and key summaries, further contribute to helping novice and more experienced learners to assess and synthesize existing research to ensure a firm foundation for creating unique and meaningful PhD dissertations, DNP projects, and other scholarly work conducted by nurses and other healthcare professionals.

Key Features:

• Provides a step-by-step guide to completing different types of literature reviews and syntheses, illuminated by examples from the literature
• Formatted concisely and consistently for ease of use
• Includes objectives, activities, key summaries, and references to simplify learning
• Focuses on synthesis of literature regarding research, quality improvement, clinical activities, health policy, and public media in separate chapters
• Addresses data synthesis for quantitative, qualitative, and other literature review types

Susan Weber Buchholz, PhD, RN, FAANP, FAAN, is a professor and Associate Dean for Research and the PhD Program at Michigan State University College of Nursing. Dr. Buchholz has been funded by the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Nursing Research. She continues to explore innovative, realistic mHealth interventions to promote walking among adults of all ages. Globally, she is one of the first researchers to use a Sequential Multiple Assignment Randomized Trial to explore how to optimize adaptive interventions to improve physical activity. She has conducted and published research on her quantitative and qualitative work and is the author of the award-winning Literature Review and Synthesis: A Guide for Nurses and Other Healthcare Professionals. As an adult nurse practitioner faculty member, she is committed to high-quality nurse practitioner education. She is a past president of the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties (NONPF). She is a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Capital University, a Master of Science in Nursing from Indiana University, and a PhD in Nursing from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. 

Kirsten Dickins, PhD, FNP, RN, is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Nursing Research at Massachusetts General Hospital.