Consider a research problem that is related to your experience. Describe the knowledge gap that research could fill. Identify the PICO(T) elements that might be found in a research question related to the problem and the research design best suited to address the problem. Would your problem lend itself to research using a qualitative design, a quantitative design, or a mixed design (uses both)? Why? Explain your answer.

A trend in patients admitted to the hospital that I saw was the large amount of issues surrounding “back pain.” So a research problem in healthcare that I feel would fill a gap would be, “What are the comparative benefits and harms of self-care advice, education, or other self-care interventions, over a period of one year?” I feel this is a good PICO(T) question with P being the population, disease, or health status “back pain.” I, being the intervention, specific tests, or therapies and medications, “self-care advice, education” C, being the comparisons, no treatment, or different types of treatments, “other self-care interventions.” O, being what outcome I will see, less symptoms, more, return to full health, “benefits and harms.” T, being the time frame for the study, “one year.” I feel this would use a qualitative approach to the question, as it would aim to collect an in-depth understanding of human behavior and the reasons that govern such behavior, and what conditions people may contribute and attribute to having such back pain. I don’t feel that this would cater to the quantitative as much as qualitative, but the number and statistics behind it could classify this research into both.

Reference –
Houser, J. (2012). Nursing research: Reading, using, and creating evidence (2nd ed.). Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett. http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/backpain/detail_backpain.htm Review the guidelines and grading rubric for the Research Database Assignment, due in Week 5. Search for ONE research database that is relevant to this assignment, and briefly describe the issue that you are investigating, the name of the professional research database, and where it may be found (i.e., the URL).
Briefly describe your process for locating professional databases that contain relevant research studies. Did you have any difficulties or face any challenges?

Pertaining to my week two discussion, I had chosen the amount of unnecessary care that is given to patients. “Overuse and unnecessary care accounts for anywhere from one-third to one-half of all health care costs, which equal hundreds of billions of dollars, in addition to the half-a-trillion per year experts attribute to lost productivity and disability.” Although I have found this to be a key issue amount healthcare professionals, many talk about this problem and the legal implications that surround “specialist” care, yet there has been very little true research done on the over or under use. Many today are concerned with the rising healthcare costs, and the seemingly unnecessary care that comes from even the basic of problems and procedures, so this I feel is a great topic of discussion. I have found the Chamberlain library although a good source of knowledge to be quite frustrating in finding specific articles. I have found that Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com) to be a great tool for quick finds when pertaining to research information. This website is also free, and provides a large, broad data base for searches. It also offers an advanced search part that allows the user to narrow done areas to specifics.

Reference – http://www.forbes.com/sites/leahbinder/2013/02/21/the-five-biggest-problems-in-health-care-today/ http://scholar.google.com