Hello everyone,

I asked the nurse I was shadowing on placement how the hospital gathers data and she said she didn’t know. This has been my experience in general on placement as a nursing student. It seems to me that not many nurses want to teach or share their knowledge with me or my fellow students. My experience is that some nurses don’t have the capacity right now to be researching new ideas or evidence-based practice techniques.

I tried finding this information independently and I read on the institution’s website that they conduct their own research in partnership with a university. The hospital seems to own their own labs and research is conducted in partnership at this facility. I would assume that this facility gathers a lot of data from their research and that this information is used in an established way to improve their policies and procedures.

If I had access to a different mentor at this facility that was interested in nursing research, I would ask them how the facility gathers research. An enthusiastic mentor would make all the difference for me in helping me feel confident in what I am learning.

Kindly,
Rachel

My research question is what interventions can nurses implement in promoting reduction of incontinence episodes amongst older adults living in long-term care homes?. At my workplace we use several tools to collect data. Some of the tools are bowel and bladder assessments, voiding diary, nursing clerks , RAI-MDS and policies located on our city of toronto intranet. The bowel and bladder assessments and also voiding diaries are used especially during new admission to get a sense of the resident’s toileting habits and if the individual is incontinent or continent . RAI-MDS stands for Resident Assessment Instrument Minimum Data Set . According to the BC Ministry Health is a comprehensive assessment that is used to identify the preference, needs and strengths of residents of long-term care homes and patients in continuing care hospitals; it also provides a snapshot of the services they receive. On my work intranet we have policies in regards to bowel and bladder. Also information can be collected from the nursing clerks working in our facility,they have information in regards to the types of incontinence briefs the residents wear. With all the tools that I have indicated above is how I will be able to answer my research question.

Research Question: How can short periods of compassion-based responsive behaviors by non-family member caregivers help support mental wellness in older adults residing in LTC?
My organization collects qualitative and quantitative data via staff surveys, patient surveys, in-person interviews, in-person communication and many other ways. To help address my research question, I would collect data in three phases. 1) Pre-intervention/assessment phase; 2) Intervention Phase; and 3) Post-intervention/ Evaluation Phase. The pre-intervention phase will be characterized by online/paper pre-surveys for residents, and online pre-surveys for staff (nurses and PSWs). The Survey Monkey Web Platform will be used for online surveys. The pre-surveys for residents will consist of demographic questions and a modified Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being scale (WEMWS) (Tennant et al., 2007). The WEMWS is a scale approved for use in the general population, and is helpful for evaluating projects which aim to improve mental-well being (Tennant et al., 2007). The pre-surveys for staff will consist of demographic questions and a modified Compassionate Love Scale for Humanity (CLS-H) (Chiesi et al., 2020). The CLS-H scale was developed to measure compassion towards strangers who need help, or who are vulnerable (Chiesi et al., 2020).
For the second phase, which would be the intervention Phase, data will be collected via direct observation of staff and residents during daily activities. Direct observation will be in-person with a researcher present, or via video footage. These options are so that the participants of the research study will have the option to choose what they are comfortable with.
Finally, for the third phase which would be the post-intervention/evaluation phase, data will be collected via paper/online surveys, via in-person/online individual interviews, and via in-person/online focus group sessions for both residents and staff. Multiple data collection tools will be used in this project for the purpose of garnering comprehensive data, to facilitate diversity and inclusivity in research participants, and for the overall comfort of participants. The Research Ethics Board overseeing the project approved for all of the data collection tools, as the project was welcome as a key Quality Improvement Initiative.
References
Chiesi, F., Lau, C. & Saklofske, D.H. (2020). A revised short version of the compassionate love scale for humanity (CLS-H-SF): evidence from item response theory analyses and validity testing. BMC Psychol 8, 20.

Tennant, R., Hiller, L., Fishwick, R., Platt, S., Joseph, S., Weich, S., Parkinson, J., Secker, J., & Stewart-Brown, S. (2007). The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS): development and UK validation. Health and quality of life outcomes, 5, 63.