This assessment requires you to write:
A case study
This assessment help page assumes you have read the unit outline, assessment description and marking rubric provided in Moodle.
In this assessment, you may need to conduct multiple searches.
Start planning your search by:
The following search concepts are examples only. You will need to identify appropriate concepts and terms for the assessment yourself.
| Key concepts | Alternative terms |
| Emergency department | emergency room, acute care |
| wound care | wound management |
Now use Boolean operators to connect your search terms.
Use OR to combine all the terms for the same concept: mental health OR wellbeing
Use AND to combine terms from different concepts: mental health AND support
Use quotation marks to search for a phrase: "mental health"
Use brackets to group all terms from the same concept together
Watch the following video to learn more about Boolean operators
When you put it together:
("emergency room" OR "emergency department" OR "acute care") AND ("wound care" OR "wound management")
You will probably need to alter your search terms as you go.
The Victorian Health Department website has some information on person centred practice as it relates to older people
When was the article published? For this assessment, you need to use articles no more than 7 years old. Generally for nursing, more recent articles are preferred because new and updated information may have come out.
How old are the references? Has the article referred to other fairly recent articles?
How old is the data used? Check to see if the data was collected a long time before the study was published. If it has been, do the authors explain why this was?
If you are using practice guidelines, evidence summaries, or something similar, make sure you use the most recent version.
Is this information relevant to your assignment? Is there likely to be better information? This will depend on what you are trying to find out. Often you will need to read the abstract to find out.
Is this aimed at the correct audience? Articles for this assessment should be peer reviewed. If you are not sure, you can copy and paste the title into Quicksearch to see if the purple peer review icon shows in the result:
Alternatively, you can check the journal title in Ulrichs. If it has a small black icon that looks like a book next to the title, it is peer reviewed (called refereed in Ulrichs).
Who wrote it? What are their qualifications? Are the qualifications relevant to the topic? Most peer reviewed articles will have information about the authors, often at the end or hyperlinked, with their qualifications listed.
Where do they work? Who do they work for? Generally, authors should be working for a university or a research centre of some kind.
Are they likely to have a good understanding of this field?
Remember resources such as best practice guidelines or evidence summaries are generally written by reliable medical organisations, such as the Joanna Briggs Institute.
What is the study population size and characteristics? Keep in mind this is dependent on the study type, for example qualitative studies usually have smaller study populations than quantitative.
Is there a control group? This is a group that does not receive the treatment, and allows the researchers to compare them to the group getting the treatment to see if it works.
Is there blinding? This is where the control and treatment groups do not know whether they are getting the intervention or not.
Do the statistics make sense and match the authors' claims?
Who funded the study? Is it a company, university or research organisation? If it is a company, do they manufacture a product being tested?
Is there any obvious bias where the authors or their employers are likely to benefit from the study recommendations? For example, if the authors work for a particular company and recommend the use of one of their products, this could indicate a risk of bias.
Does it state what the authors' were trying to find out? The research aims or questions should be clearly stated in the beginning of the article, and the conclusions should describe what they found out.
FedCite is the one stop shop for all your referencing needs. In nursing, you need to use APA 7. Look at the Using APA7 section to find out general information on how to cite and reference, and the source types for specific examples.