Cabrillo College Library

Cabrillo College Nursing Department

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Hints for Exercise 1: Find a specific document on the Web

Exercise 1 Evidence-based nursing integrates the best research evidence available with clinical expertise and patient values to make sound clinical decisions. Increasingly, nurses have to know how to identify quality sources of evidence to use. The National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC) is a federal government site that provides a large database of evidence-based clincial guidelines.

On the Web, find the Guideline with the title Persistent Pain Management.

In your Word document, summarize what the guideline says about assessing the impact of pain on physical functioning in older adults. If the intensity of pain can be reduced by 25%, what kind of an improvement can be expected? What type of supporting evidence is noted for this?

Hints for Exercise 1

1. Finding the document   Here's what you know about the document:

  1. the title
  2. .gov is the top level domain since it is from a U.S. government site
  3. you'll recognize it because it comes from the National Guideline Clearinghouse

It is probably easiest to use Google in the Advanced Search mode. Go to Google and click to go to the Advanced Search mode (over on right). Here's a search for this document:

Type an exact phrase from the title. Limit to domain names that have .gov in them. Limit to words in the title of the page. (You have to click on Date, usage rights, numeric range, and more to do that.)

2. Finding what is said about assessing the impact of pain on physical functioning in older adults
Nursing students are frequently confronted with the need to find information buried in long documents. You conquer this challenge by skimming -- look the document over quickly to see how it's arranged. On the computer, use the scroll bar to do that -- scroll all the way down, then back again.

You can find a particular word on a page by using the Find command (Ctrl F). For example, in this exercise, you want the section that talks about physical functioning. Use the Find command to locate that section.

3. Whether a particular part of the guideline is supported by evidence

Note that recommendations are given various grades (e.g., Evidence Grade = C).

Find the portion of the Guideline where the rating scheme for the strength of the evidence is given. (Information about how the evidence is rated is in the Methodology section: "Rating Scheme for the Strength of the Evidence.") What does it say?

If you are unfamiliar with the term "meta-analysis," look it up in a nursing dictionary:

  1. Go to the Cabrillo College Library homepage
  2. Click on Full Text Articles
  3. Click on Credo reference (in center column under Encyclopedias/Background Information)
  4. Click to select medicine

Your search will look like this:

4. In your Word document, summarize what the guideline says about assessing the impact of pain on physical functioning in older adults. If the intensity of pain can be reduced by 25%, what kind of an improvement can be expected? What type of supporting evidence is noted for this?

Return to Doing Nursing Research exercise.