8/18/2019 Frameworks for Research
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Frameworks for Research
Patricia Liehr and Mary Jane Smith
From Practice to Research
To be introduced to frameworks for research, put yourself in the shoes of Kate andthoughtfully listen to her story by attending to the message it brings for the practicing nurse
wishing to critique, understand and do research. Kate works in a coronary care unit (CCU). She
has worked in this unit for nearly three years, since she graduated with a baccalaureate degree in
nursing. She has grown more comfortable over time and now believes that she can readily
manage whatever comes her way with the complexities of patient care in the CCU. Recently, she
has been observing the pattern of blood pressure (BP) change when healthcare providers enter a
patient’s room. This observation began when Kate noticed that one of her patients a 62 year oldAfrican-American woman who had continuous arterial monitoring, had dramatic increases in BP,
as much as 100%, each time the healthcare team made rounds in the CCU. Furthermore, this
elevated BP persisted after the team left her room and slowly decreased to reach pre-round levels
within the following hour. Conversely, the same patient, when visited by the nurse manager on
her usual daily rounds, engaged calmly in conversation and was often left with lower BP when
the nurse-manager moved on to the next patient. Kate thought about what was happening and
adjusted her work so that she could closely observe the details of this phenomenon over several
days.