Allied Health Journals Research Articles

Meta-analysis: How to quantify and explain heterogeneity?

The number of systematic reviews and meta-analyses submitted to nursing and allied health journals continues to grow. Well-conducted and reported syntheses of research are valuable to advancing science. One of the common critiques identified in these manuscripts involves how the authors addressed heterogeneity among the studies in their meta-analyses. Methodologically inappropriate approaches regarding heterogeneity introduce error and bias into analyses and may lead to incorrect findings and conclusions. This article will discuss some of the approaches to take as well as avoid when addressing heterogeneity in meta-analyses, including suggestions for how to choose a fixed-effect or random-effects meta-analysis model and steps to follow to address heterogeneity in meta-analysis results.

A Fall From Grace?

I remember those halcyon days so well. I was the newly appointed editor of this esteemed journal, and the Oncology Nursing Forum (ONF) sat atop the impact factor list of nursing and allied health journals. As a reminder, the impact factor is a measure of the frequency with which the average article has been cited within a particular year. The latest impact factor from 2017 uses citation data from articles published from 2015-2016. To be clear, this is not a measure or commentary of an article's quality, but rather a journal's citation popularity among authors.

Continuous quality improvement in nephrology: a systematic review.

BackgroundContinuous quality improvement (CQI) has been successfully applied in business and engineering for over 60 years. While using CQI techniques within nephrology has received increased attention, little is known about where, and with what measure of success, CQI can be attributed to improving outcomes within nephrology care. This is particularly important as payors’ focus on value-based healthcare and reimbursement is tied to achieving quality improvement thresholds. We conducted a systematic review of CQI applications in nephrology.MethodsStudies were identified from PubMed, MEDLINE, Scopus, Web of Science, CINAHL, Google Scholar, ProQuest Dissertation s and sources of grey literature (i.e., available in print/electronic format but not controlled by commercial publishers) between January 1, 2004 and October 13, 2014. We developed a systematic evaluation protocol and pre-defined criteria for review. All citations were reviewed by two reviewers with disagreements resolved by consensus.ResultsWe initially identified 468 publications; 40 were excluded as duplicates or not available/not in English. An additional 352 did not meet criteria for full review due to: 1. Not meeting criteria for inclusion = 196 (e.g., reviews, news articles, editorials) 2. Not nephrology-specific = 153, 3. Only available as abstracts = 3. Of 76 publications meeting criteria for full review, the majority [45 (61%)] focused on ESRD care. 74% explicitly stated use of specific CQI tools in their methods. The highest number of publications in a given year occurred in 2011 with 12 (16%) articles. 89% of studies were found in biomedical and allied health journals and most studies were performed in North America (52%). Only one was randomized and controlled although not blinded.ConclusionsDespite calls for healthcare reform and funding to inspire innovative research, we found few high quality studies either rigorously evaluating the use of CQI in nephrology or reporting best practices. More rigorous research is needed to assess the mechanisms and attributes by which CQI impacts outcomes before there is further promotion of its use for improvement and reimbursement purposes.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12882-016-0389-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Comparison of core full text coverage in CINAHL Complete, ProQuest’s Nursing and Allied Health Source and Lippincott Wilkins and Wilson’s Nursing & Health Professionals Premier Collection

Purpose – This paper aims to assess relative full-text coverage of core nursing and allied health journals in three databases: CINAHL Complete, ProQuest Nursing and Allied Health Source and Lippincott Wilkins and Wilson (LWW)’s Nursing & Health Professionals Premier Collection. Design/methodology/approach – The 2012 Nursing and Allied Health Resources Section (NAHRS) of the MLA list of 213 core nursing journals and the 1996 Brandon Hill list of 75 important allied journals were checked against full-text coverage of the three databases. Findings – CINAHL Complete provided 126 of 213 titles or 59 per cent of NAHRS titles and 31 of 75 or 41 per cent of the Brandon Hill titles; ProQuest provided 74 of 213 titles or 35 per cent of NAHRS titles and 27 of 75 or 36 per cent of the Brandon Hill titles; LWW provided 42 of 213 or 20 per cent of NAHRS titles and 5 of 75 or 6 per cent of the Brandon Hill titles. Research limitations/implications – If researchers have access to CINAHL Complete, they have access with that single database to significant coverage of quality nursing and allied health titles. The other two databases provide additional coverage and some unique title coverage, but their offerings are more limited. Originality/value – As no studies comparing full-text coverage of core nursing and allied health journals in three databases, CINAHL Complete, ProQuest Nursing and Allied Health Source and LWW’s Nursing & Health Professionals Premier Collection, exist, this study fills that need for librarians.

Quality vs. Quantity in Versions of CINAHL

EBSCOhost sells subscriptions to five different versions of the CINAHL database. On its CINAHL web pages, EBSCOhost provides a link to a chart which shows differences among these products in terms of numbers of journals indexed and numbers of journals in full text. This chart does not, however, address the quality of journals within each of the versions of the database. This article compares indexing and full text coverage of core Nursing and Allied Health journals among the five versions of CINAHL. For core nursing journals, the most current NAHRS list was consulted. For core allied health journals, the 1996 Brandon Hill list was consulted. In addition to these resources, Web of Science titles for each field were also used. Most core nursing journals were indexed in all versions of CINAHL while full text coverage varied significantly. In contrast, core allied health journals were significantly better covered in some versions of CINAHL than in others, in both indexing and full text coverage. However, core allied health journals were overall less well-covered than core nursing titles.

Measuring the impact of allied health research

BackgroundExcellence in Research for Australia (ERA) rankings are given to academic journals in which Australian academics publish. This provides a metric on which Australian institutions and disciplines are ranked for international competitiveness. This paper explores the issues surrounding the ERA rankings of allied health journals in Australia.MethodsWe conducted a broad search to establish a representative list of general allied health and discipline-specific journals for common allied health disciplines. We identified the ERA rankings and impact factors for each journal and tested the congruence between these metrics within the disciplines.ResultsFew allied health journals have high ERA rankings (A*/A), and there is variability in the impact factors assigned to journals within the same ERA rank. There is a small group of allied health researchers worldwide, and this group is even smaller when divided by discipline. Current publication metrics may not adequately assess the impact of research, which is largely aimed at clinicians to improve clinical practice. Moreover, many journals are produced by underfunded professional associations, and readership is often constrained by small numbers of clinicians in specific allied health disciplines who are association members.ConclusionAllied health must have a stronger united voice in the next round of ERA rankings. The clinical impact of allied health journals also needs to be better understood and promoted as a research metric.

The meaning of hope in nursing research: a meta‐synthesis

The aim of this study was to develop a meta-synthesis of nursing research about hope as perceived by people during sickness and by healthy people. A meta-synthesis does not intend to cover all studies about hope; rather it tries to synthesize qualitative findings from different contexts, cultures and times to provide a global picture of the phenomenon under study. Noblit and Hare's meta-ethnographic approach was used. The approach is a systematic comparison of studies where each study is translated into the other. Data were 15 qualitative studies published in nursing or allied health journals and conducted in USA, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, Norway, Sweden and Finland. The meta-synthesis resulted in six metaphors that illustrate dimensions of hope. These metaphors permeated the experiences of hope regardless of whether the human being was healthy, chronically or terminally ill. They comprise the complexity of hope and were: living in hope, hoping for something, hope as a light on the horizon, hope as a human-to-human relationship, hope vs. hopelessness and fear: two sides of the same coin, and hope as weathering a storm. Knowing the multidimensionality of hope and what hope means from the patient's perspective might help nurses and other healthcare professionals to inspire hope as Florence Nightingale did when she walked with the lamp through the dark corridors and spread hope and light to the patients. We suggest that nurses working with patients with serious conditions such as cancer reflect on the meaning of the metaphors.

Finding the Best Evidence, Part 2: The Basics of Literature Searches

CINAHL, MEDLINE, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews are electronic databases that can be used by emergency nurses to identify scientific articles published in nursing, medical and allied health journals.1 MEDLINE and CINAHL are bibliographic databases; that is, they contain information about literature (such as title, author, and date of publication) but do not contain the full text of any articles or books. In contrast, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews contains the full text of several thousand systematic reviews, as well as protocols of reviews not yet completed.

Exploring Prayer as a Spiritual Modality

What does it mean to focus on the spiritual in occupational therapy? What interventions would qualify as spiritual modalities? This paper attempts to define the boundaries of what may be considered legitimate uses of spirituality in occupational therapy by using the example of prayer. The purpose of this paper was to provide an in-depth analysis of the use of prayer in practice. Medical and allied health journals were searched using the terms spirituality, spirit, religion, and prayer. Identified articles were synthesized to identify potential advantages and disadvantages of using prayer in therapy. Prayer can be considered an appropriate occupational therapy intervention so long as four questions can be answered positively. To answer these questions, guidelines are provided that will lead the therapist through a decision making process to determine the appropriateness of incorporating prayer into any clinical situation.

Turning tapes into text: issues surrounding the transcription of interviews

Transcription of interview data is a common practice in qualitative health research. However, there has been little discussion of the techniques of transcription and the issues inherent in the use of transcription as a strategy for managing qualitative data in nursing publications. The process of transcription may disclose or obscure certain information. Researchers need to question practices of transcription that have been taken for granted and make transparent the processes used to preserve the integrity of data. This paper first examines research reported in nursing and allied health journals employing interviews for data collection and the attention given to the transcription phase. It then deals with issues of concern regarding the transcription of interviews, and offers suggestions for promoting validity.

Review: research on chronic illness has shifted towards viewing the individual as empowered and a partner in the health management process

Thorne S, Paterson B. Shifting images of chronic illness. Image J Nurs Sch1998 ; 30 : 173 –8 [OpenUrl][1][CrossRef][2][PubMed][3] Question How have healthcare relationships in chronic illness changed over the...

Review: patients living with diabetes mellitus focus on learning to balance by assuming control for the management of their illness

Paterson BL, Thorne S, Dewis M . Adapting to and managing diabetes. Image J Nurs Sch1998 First Quarter; 30 : 57 –62. [OpenUrl][1][CrossRef][2][PubMed][3] Question What is the “lived experience” of...

Adapting to and managing diabetes.

To advance understanding of the lived experience of diabetes as described in published research and theses. Meta-analysis extends the analysis of individual research studies beyond individual experience to incorporate dominant system beliefs and health system ideologies. Curtin and Lubkin's (1990) conceptualization of the experience of chronic illness. Forty-three qualitative interpretive research reports in six computerized data bases 1980-1996 pertaining to the lived experience of diabetes and published in nursing, in the social sciences, and in allied health journals were used. Meta-ethnography in which trustworthiness was achieved by using multiple researchers, identifying negative or disconfirming cases, and testing rival hypotheses Balance is the determinant metaphor of the experience of diabetes. People learn to balance diabetes through their experience and experimentation with strategies for managing their illness. Learning to balance is a developmental process in which one learns to assume control of diabetes management. Support for such development requires that nurses know their clients as individuals and value the expertise they have gained in living with diabetes. Control of blood sugar levels within a prescribed range may be a goal established by professionals, but the goal of healthy balance determines a person's willingness to assume an active role in self-care.