Our PICOT question was “What Impact of Rooming-in on Outcomes for Newborns with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome”
When making this PICOT question we had to find a middle ground and find something we were all interested in. Emily and Julia both were interested in pediatrics and midwifery, however I was the odd one out that wanted to focus on emergency practices. We all came to an agreement that we would focus on Newborn with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome. Our group did a great job working as a group to incorporate practices we will all interested in.
Making the PICOT question was difficult in itself. The question had to include a population, which we knew was going to be Newborns with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome but we had to figure out what intervention, comparison, and outcome we wanted to focus on. We wanted to do a little research before coming to a conclusion about these topics, so we decided to research what practices were used in the treatment of Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome. We found many medications that would help decrease the severity of the symptom, but we wanted to find a more non-pharmacologic approach to help these patients. We did struggle a little on decided what this should be but after doing research we came to the conclusion to use the rooming-in approach and what outcomes that can have on the treatment of newborn with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome.
Choosing a Topic
Picking a topic to dive deeper was in its own way easy and difficult. We all are friends and wanted to ensure that everyone enjoyed the topic. Julia and Emily both were interested in pediatrics, however I was interested in emergency room theories. We worked together well together to came to the conclusion of researching Newborns born with Neonatal Absence Syndrome (NAS).
Search for And Collect The Most Relevant Evidence-Finding Articles
After developing a PICOT question it was time to find articles related to our topic. We had assistance form the librarian to help narrow our search to ensure we found relevant articles. Even with this help we had difficultly finding articles related to rooming-in that were reasonable to us. We did find many article that did not fit the requirements that we had to fulfill. Since we struggled with finding articles Professor Kramlich had to assist. In addition, to Professor Kramlich’s experience with finding articles, she also had experience with research related to NAS. We also completed further research during this step to help us prepare to write our paper. We wanted to gather more information on NAS and the technique of rooming-in. As a collective we read through about twelve articles, but out of these twelve articles only three of them find the date requirement and had different forms of research that we needed to adhere to.
Critically Appraise The Evidence- Part I (Rapid Critical Appraisal)
For this portion of the project we divided the work evenly, by having each individual in the group do a critical appraisal on each article. We all read the articles to ensure we understood what each article was about, however, only one person had to fill out the template for one article. We all had a difficult time filling out the templates, because we had never had to fill out a templet like this before. After filling out these templets and getting much needed feed back from our professor we advised our citations and our PICOT question to make them the best they could be. This format also prepared us for the next few steps of our project by enabling us to prepare information for our final paper.
Critically Appraise The Evidence- Part II (evidence table & annotated bibliography)
After all the work that we put into this portion of the project it was worth it. This part included making a table that provided the specific evidence from the three different article we chose of focus on. We turned in our first draft of the table but received feed back that our table had too much information and needed to make the table concise and not as many words. We also struggled with developing our citations in APA format during this step. When constructing our annotated bibliography we also struggled with having too many words. Personally my annotated bibliography needed a lot of work after getting it reviewed by our professor. I rambled and did not explain the research in the best way possible. I had to add in the strengths of the research and elaborate on how the study was performed. Our group worked well through this step by dividing our work load to ensure none of us were overwhelmed with the amount of work we had to complete. Even though this was a piece of writing none of use were familiar with it was very useful to use for our paper in the next step.
Critically Appraise The Evidence- Part III (synthesis-writing the paper)
With all the information we learned from steps before the paper was a lot easier to write. Since we all did our own separate writing on different articles we struggled with having our work come together. We all have different forms of writing and we all had to adapt and change our writing style to have it come together. When writing our first draft of the paper we all had our individual portions explaining our research articles but we still had the introduction and the conclusion of the paper to write. We divided the conclusion up into three different sections In addition, when we submitted the draft our paper was over the page limit, so it was difficult to cut down our paper. After getting the draft back from our professor we had many edits including the APA format of the synthesis and the bibliography.
What I Learned
I am personally not a big fan of writing papers, however writing the paper in different steps was very helpful. having different steps due at different times ensured that we did not end up having to the paper all at once. Doing the paper step by step also enabled us to fully understand each different portion of the project. This project also provided us insight on the research portion of the nursing profession. By picking this specific topic it also enabled me to gain more insight on newborns with NAS, because did not know much about it. This project also required teamwork to complete a well constructed paper. This is a very important attribute to have as a nurse. In the nursing field we will have to work with all different health professions, such as doctors, physical therapists, occupational therapist and more. Most importantly this project also taught me that completing high quality work will take time and it may take multiple tries. Just like writing multiple drafts of a paper your work will not be perfect the first time.
