Article Review: “Nurses' Beliefs About Family Presence During Resuscitation”

The research article, “Nurses' Beliefs About Family Presence During Resuscitation”, explored the beliefs of nurses on the family presence (FP) during the resuscitation of a patient. Traditionally medical practitioners believe families to be a distraction for medical practitioners. However, some more recent studies have found positive effects from FP during resuscitation, which begs the question of how the nurses feel about the subject.

As a descriptive study, the researchers were not investigating a hypothesis tied to any theory. The authors point out how some studies force a research question in some manner of theory when the study is simply at the descriptive level (Knott & Kee, 2005). The authors did not try to ground their research into demonstrating any hypothesis or theory in order to allow the participants to, “voice their feelings and experiences” (Knott & Kee, 2005, p. 193).

The research was guided by significant theoretical precedents on the value of such an open-ended study. Sandelowski notes that phenomenal variation in the sample is desirable to better note the variations in the target phenomenon (as cited in Knott & Kee, 2005, p. 193). Knott and Kee's practice of recruiting a sample population of 10 nurses from as different of backgrounds as reasonably possible kept their study well within the protocols advised for a descriptive qualitative study.

Knott and Kee's results are data that describe the events as closely as possible to the respondent's observations. The conclusion of the study was to draw four common themes that emerged through an analysis of the interviews and present them for future researchers. This study was carefully within the described protocols of this style of study and the researchers were careful to not tie the findings to any theoretical framework, but simply to present the data are found.

Reference

Knott, A., & Kee, C. C. (2005). Nurses' beliefs about family presence during resuscitation. Applied Nursing Research, 18, pp. 192-198.