Improvement Interpersonal Communication - Research Proposal Example

? RESEARCH PROPOSAL goes here] [Your goes here] [Due the paper] Introduction/Background Improved interpersonal communication is the key to personal or professional success for every person. In case of nursing professional, this factor counts even more because in nursing it is concerned not only with the professional responsibilities of nurses but also plays a vital role in the provision of best medical care to patients. The communication that takes place between two consecutive shifts of bedside nurses is known as bedside nursing handover. The main aim of nursing handovers is to make the oncoming nurses aware of the present condition of the patient under care. The nurses leaving the shift give a handover to the nurses taking charge at the end of each nursing shift. In the handover, nurses inform the new in-charge nurses about the changes in patient’s progress level, as well as the about the treatment that need to be given to the patient during the shift. Nurses gather information for handover from the patient’s care plan, patient record, and other medical documents and present it to other nurses either through face-to-face communication or in the form of taped handovers. In some institutes, nurses also consult patients during handover in order to provide patient-centered care to patients. “Bedside handover provides an opportunity for patients to be involved as active participants in their care” (McMurray, Chaboyer, Wallis, Johnson, & Gehrke, 2011, p. 19). Not all nurses do this but this step is highly appreciated by most of the patients because it plays a vital role in promoting safe and high quality care through higher levels of accuracy in handovers. The participation of patients in handover is considered to be one of the main aspects of high quality nursing care. Knowing the perspective of patients helps nurses in tailoring their bedside handovers in such a way that they reflects patients' thoughts and beliefs and make new in-charge nurses aware of the actual condition of patients. Bringing improvement in the bedside nursing has always been a critical need of the medical world. Poor bedside nursing not only contributes to delayed improvements in the medical condition of patients but also sometimes results in unexpected deaths and worsened patients’ condition. In recent years, some researches have been done to know the importance of bedside nursing handovers on the health of patients but there exists the need to examine the benefits and challenges of bedside nursing handovers. This study proposes to (1) identify the benefits and challenges associated with bedside nursing handovers and finding ways to overcome the challenges (2) determine the impact of patients’ involvement in preparing handover for nurses. Previous researches have been unable to get an insight into the factors that affect the preparation of handovers. Moreover, there is also less emphasis on the importance of patients’ input in the provision of best medical care to patients. The goal will be to come up with some suggestions to make improvements in the bedside nursing handovers. Moreover, the study is also aimed to encourage people to join bedside nursing profession because of its influence on the well-being of whole society. Research Question The research question for this research will be: ‘what are the benefits and challenges in the right implementation of bedside nursing handovers and what can be done to overcome the associated challenges’. Significance of the Problem/Issue to Nursing and Midwifery The issue of bedside nursing handover is of considerable importance in the field of nursing and midwifery. Without handover, nurses cannot guarantee flawless and safe provision of medical care to patients because oncoming nurses require pertinent information to start doing their job properly. Similarly, bedside handover also ensures the ongoing confidentiality of the medical records of patients. In midwifery, the issue of handover becomes even more critical because pregnant women need continuous care during the last stages of pregnancy and a minor negligence in the provision of care can put the lives of both mother and the child in danger. The significance of bedside handovers cannot be neglected in any case because earlier observational studies and evidences from hospital wards suggest that they boost the overall recovery procedure and improve patients’ treatment experience (National Nursing Research Unit [NNRU], 2012). Bedside handovers also improve the level of communication between health are professionals and nurses which promotes improvement in a patient’s health progress level, as well as in the overall patient care plan. They also prove beneficial for involving patients’ desires and concerns in developing their individual care plans. Moreover, patients also get to know the person who is taking care of hem, as well as the plan of care the nurses are following in the provision of healthcare. One cannot deny from the importance of bedside nursing handovers because they are an integral part of the nursing and midwifery fields of medical care. Without such handovers, nurses cannot get the time to observe patients’ behaviors and to listen to their concerns. Similarly, they cannot ensure improvement in the communication about medication and safety of patient care (NNRU, 2012). Nursing handovers also save time of oncoming nurses because they do not have to study each patient’s plan of care on their own. One of the main points that reveal the significance of beside handovers is that they provide nurse leaders with a chance to tailor their caring behaviors in accordance with the needs of the patients. Without such handovers, nurses cannot tell new shift staff regarding what they need to do about each patient’s treatment. Structured communication and interaction between nurses and other healthcare professionals cannot take place if there is the nurses are not required to present handovers to oncoming nurses. This point reveals the importance of making it essential for every nursing employee to communicate patients’ present condition to the new staff upon change of shift (NNRU, 2012). Talking about the significance of bedside nursing handovers in the fields of nursing and midwifery, it is imperative to know that handovers play a vital role in successful treatment of pregnant women right from the stage of birth to prenatal stages. The improvement in the quality of patients’ treatment cannot be achieved without nursing handovers. The reason is that handovers make nurses feel an important part of the overall treatment process. They take care of patients’ conditions, write down the points about improvements in their personal diaries, and communicate the information to the oncoming nurses. Similarly, when senior health professionals support and encourage nurses on showing care for patients, it generates a creative and healing environment in the health institute. If we talk about patients’ perspective about bedside nursing handovers, we can say that patients have a very positive opinion about nursing handovers because they feel that such things improve their quality of treatment because one every shift a fresh staff with all information about their plan of care is there to take care of them. Another point which shows the significance of bedside nursing handovers is that they provide an opportunity for patients to interact with staff and convey their needs and health requirements (NNRU, 2012). Moreover, handovers also help nursing staff in moving in the right direction while finding the right balance between patients’ needs and doctors’ instructions. Along with the benefits of nursing bedside handovers, there also exist some challenges that nurses come across when providing right information to oncoming nurses. For example, some nurses are not able to proper documentation of the medical processes being applied in a patient’s treatment which results in poor communication between nursing staff, information lost, and presentation of incomplete in formation to the oncoming nurses. Similarly, some nurses are not fully aware of what they must include in the handover and what they should keep out. Some nurses also do not know the right way to involve patients in the preparation of nursing handover. Privacy protection of patients’ medical records is also a concern related to bedside nursing handovers (NNRU, 2012). Nurses need to know what they should discuss in front of patients with other nurses and what should they discuss in private. These are some of the main challenges that need to be addressed in order to reap maximum benefits from the use of bedside nursing handovers. Research Methodology Sample In the proposed study, the researcher will study the responses of 20 nurses and 60 patients. The researcher will use questionnaire to get the responses of the participants. To get the responses of patients to know their perceptions about involvement in nursing handovers, the researcher will use a social media website, Facebook. “Distributing a survey through Facebook is now easier than ever with Rational Survey’s  new Facebook integration” (RationalSurvey, 2011). The study will include the use of a Facebook account to arrange the survey. The questionnaire will be shared with the participants through posting to wall. “After distributing your survey you will be able to view real time response data by visiting the Analytics pages” (RationalSurvey, 2011). To get the responses of the nurses, the researcher will visit some local hospitals. The researcher will make use of observation, as well as structured interviews to know what difficulties nurses usually face in the implementation of bedside nursing handovers system. The interviews will be conducted in the hospitals which will facilitate both nurses and the researcher, as well as it will save the time at both ends. As far as the duration of the interviews is concerned, each interview will take at least fifteen minutes and responses will be recorded on a paper. Interviews will help in knowing the factors that affect the implementation of bedside nursing handovers. The interviews will also provide an insight into nurses’ personal opinion about the importance of bedside nursing handovers. In case of knowing patients’ responses, snowball sampling method will be used to find the target population. Snowball sampling helps in situations where the target population is not easy to be located. This technique makes use of references in locating the required sample. For example, in this case, it will be hard for the researcher to find people who will have experienced a stay of at least two days in some hospital. The study will include participants (patients) based on the following criteria: (a) age limit of 40 to 55 years because this is the age when a person needs more medical care in the hospital and is more concerned about his/her treatment plan, (b) at least two days stay in a hospital. On the other hand, there is no particular criterion for the selection of nursing participants. For example, the researcher will conduct interviews with both experienced and fresh nursing professionals. The ethical consideration for this particular research topic will be the privacy of information provided by the participants. All participants will be taken in confidence by ensuring them that their personal information will not be used elsewhere. There will be a confidential form along with the questionnaire that will be signed by the researcher to ensure that the obtained information will be used only for this particular study. Guiding Questions The guiding questions for the research will be: (1) What are the benefits of nursing handovers in the fields of nursing and midwifery? (2) What are the challenges associated with bedside nursing handovers and which ways can be used to overcome the challenges? (3) What is the impact of patients’ involvement in preparing handover for nurses? Measures This is going to be a longitudinal study which will determine the challenges that nurses face in presenting handovers to oncoming nurses upon change of the shift. The subjects will be asked to fill in a questionnaire that will be designed to investigate the perceived benefits and challenges in bedside nursing handovers. Data gathered from these surveys will provide the researcher with key information regarding the issue. The questionnaires for patients and nurses will be designed using Likert scale model because of its effectiveness in retrieving true parameter values and will be distributed among participants through the social networking website as described above. The questions included in the questionnaires will be sufficient enough to obtain required information. There will be no bias in the questions as all of them will be general and will gather a particular set of information. In the questionnaire designed to know patients’ perception, some of the main questions will be: 1. For how long had you been in the hospital? 2. Did you like the way the nurses took care of your health? 3. Did nurses take your suggestions during nursing handovers? If yes, how and what suggestion did you give? 4. Did new nurses offer medical care in accordance with your suggestions included in the handovers? If yes, what benefits do you observe? 5. How do you see the level of communication that existed between nurses and other health professionals? In the questionnaire designed to know patients’ perception, some of the main questions will be: 1. For how long have you been in the hospital? 2. Is there any particular regulation in implementation in your hospital regarding bedside nursing handovers? 3. What challenges do you usually face in presenting handovers to oncoming nurses? Explain them please. 4. What training programs, if any, have been implemented in your hospital to help nurses overcome those challenges? 5. Please explain some of the main benefits of nursing handovers as you might have experienced. These questions will be very helpful in getting relevant information about the benefits and challenges regarding bedside nursing handovers. Analysis Technique The researcher will use qualitative design to conduct this research. This design will help in getting detailed information about the issue. This type of research will also help the researcher get an insight into real benefits and challenges related to bedside nursing handovers. This research will also help in using subjective information to examine the challenges, as well as in dealing with value-laden research questions in a useful manner. Quantitative design will not be suitable because it will provide some generalized results in the form of numbers and figures, which will not be helpful for the researcher for this particular study. As far as data storage is concerned, the researcher will gather data through interviews (using questionnaire with nurses) and questionnaire (sent to patients through social website) and will store them in the personal computer system for analysis and preparation of the final report. The study will include the use of regression analysis technique to identify the relationship between variables. Regression analysis will help the researcher in knowing the exact relationship between independent (handovers) and dependent (impact on health and treatment of patients) variables. If we talk about the validity and authenticity of the research, we can say that there is no apparent threat to validity of the research because the researcher will take information from authentic sources, such as, real patients and nursing professionals. Justification of the Proposed Research The results of the study will determine the impact of bedside nursing handovers on the treatment process of patients. The results will also help the researcher in knowing the challenges that new nursing professionals usually face in the presentation of nursing handovers. Moreover, the results will also give an insight into patients’ perception about inclusion of their suggestions in handovers. As far as the plan of distributing the questionnaire to patients using social networking website its concerned, it will prove to be successful because participants will have an easy access to that, as well as they will feel safe in filling the questionnaires. Moreover, the use of social websites will not only promote voluntary participation but also it will save time and money of the researcher. The reason for why bedside nursing handovers have been an issue of concern for a long time is related directly with the associated benefits if implemented properly and perceived negative outcomes if not presented with due care. The importance of studying the challenges that nurses usually face in bedside nursing handovers cannot be neglected in any case because they play the role of hurdles in the provision of best available care to patients. This is the reason why this research will mainly be focused on the difficulties that nurses face when they communicate with other healthcare professionals for handovers, as well as when they prepare the recommendations in accordance with the information available to them from treatment charts and plan of care. Prior researches have not been able to identify such challenges, as well as the programs that need to be implemented to overcome these challenges. The results of this research will be helpful in getting a detailed insight into the challenges which will help nursing professionals and medical institutes in dealing with the issue effectively. References McMurray, A., Chaboyer, W., Wallis, M., Johnson, J., & Gehrke, T. (2011). Patients’ Perspectives of Bedside Nursing Handover. Collegian, 18(1), 19-26. National Nursing Research Unit. (2012). What are the benefits and challenges of ‘bedside’ nursing handovers?. Retrieved from http://www.kcl.ac.uk/nursing/research/nnru/policy/Currentissue/Policy--Issue-36.pdf RationalSurvey. (2011). Distribute your Survey on Facebook. Retrieved from http://www.rationalsurvey.com/blog/tutorials/distribute-your-survey-on-facebook/ Read More