Preparing Practice Scholars: What Essential Information do DNPs Need to Interpret Evidence?

Preparing Practice Scholars: What Essential Information do DNPs Need to Interpret Evidence? The proliferation of Doctorate of Nursing (DNP) programs and the requirement for Capstone projects indicates a great need for specific information related to the systematic investigation of the literature and development of a project to answer a significant clinical question. Therefore this presentation will focus on providing NP faculty with essential content needed for organizing a framework for teaching research in DNP programs. The major framework topics include: 1) essential research skills; 2) literature appraisal and systematic review interpretation; and 3) evaluation of expert content. Essential research skills include developing a researchable PICO (patient/problem/ phenomenon, intervention, comparison, and outcome) question; ascertaining a strategic search strategy; identifying variables and their level of measurement; critically appraising reliability, validity and feasibility properties of instruments; creating and using research designs, and interpreting descriptive and inferential statistics. These research components are all critical to answering a PICO question with relevance for clinical practice. Being able to determine if the literature being reviewed is accurate, relevant and applicable provides an important foundation for Capstone projects. Systematic reviews are a critical component when investigating clinical questions and need to be rigorous at all levels of the review process, including retrieval, appraisal, inclusion of studies, extracting and pooling of data and finally synthesizing and reporting. When examining a meta-analysis, the concepts of heterogeneity, effect size, forest plot, and confidence interval and p values need to be fully understood, as well as how to interpret dichotomous and continuous data. Understanding interpretation of credibility and similarity of the findings in meta-synthesis and interpreting the meta-aggregation of the data are crucial. Expert content provides another critical source of information. The experts are informed by EBP, which also informs the guidelines. Tools are available to review narrative content, diagnostic tests, and consensus guidelines. EBP involves reviewing the best available evidence, clinical expertise, patient preferences and available resources. Integrating basic research skills, literature and systematic review interpretation and expert content review ensures a sound foundation for practice scholars and will be demonstrated using an exemplar.