The Importance of the Research to Nursing Practice - Essay Example

"The Importance of the Research to Nursing Practice" is a wonderful example of a paper on care.
Nursing is a practice where patients are looked after by professionals so that the patients may recover/ maintain health conditions. Nursing is a broad field wherein the professional specializes in a particular aspect of it. These specialists then work as a team. Nursing is an ever-evolving discipline where knowledge is acquired through evidence-based practices documented in a scholarly journal.

Research is an important tool in the development of the knowledge base of nursing practice. It generates new insight and a novel point of view into the existing treatment procedures and about the disease. A continuous research in the field of nursing practice is very important as through research new data and cures are discovered which help in finding new patterns and subsequently help in developing new procedures to fight the patients’ condition.

The development of nursing practice in diseases like COPD, Lung Cancer, Asthma, and Smoking exemplifies the importance of the research to nursing practice. These are four similar diseases (affecting the same organ; lungs) with different backgrounds (origin, causes, development, effects, and cure).

COPD is a serious lung disease that during the course of time makes it difficult to breathe.  It is the fourth main reason for death in the United States and leads to long-term disability.[1] Persons suffering from COPD find it difficult to get the air in and out of their lungs as the airways (tubes that carry the air in and out of the lungs) are partially blocked. There are two prime diseases that cause this blockage- Chronic bronchitis and Emphysema. The main cause of this lung disorder is cigarette smoking which contributes to 80-90% of the disease. [1] Nursing practices go a long way in the cure of the disease. Nurses/ professionals and pulmonary rehabilitation programs help to control the disease through physical activity and training. Nursing is fast emerging as a means to put a check on COPD. The best cure against COPD is to quit smoking. An online COPD community has emerged where different COPD patients and professionals share their experience and methods to fight cure COPD.

Lung Cancer refers to cancer of the tissues of the lungs, generally in the cells lining the air passages. It is one of the more lethal diseases. It claims more lives than prostate, colon, breast, and lymph cancers combined, per year. Essentially, there are two types of lung cancers: Small Cell Lung Cancer (SCLC) and Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC). Both categories have the capacity to cause life-threatening damages to the neuromuscular system. A significant part of the treatment of lung cancer is the way the problem is nursed. Nursing practices play an important role. Advanced nursing practice has been introduced as a practice that includes a variety of roles essential for treating lung cancer and the environments in which they exist. Planning is quite necessary for combating the disease. Many obstacles to realizing the full potential of the roles can be evaded through better efforts and planning to address factors, resources, and structures necessary for advanced nursing practice to lung cancer.

Recent research conducted on patients with lung cancer suggested that patients often experience multiple symptoms that vary during the course of their disease.[2] Therefore, in conjunction with the high-quality physical care of the patients, nursing practice is also required to provide frequent interventions with patients varying from patient education regarding chemotherapy, surgery and radiation therapy and symptom management meant for skin changes linked to fatigue, radiation therapy, weight loss and nausea due to changes in appetite.

Asthma is chiefly characterized by shortness of breath, tightness of the chest along with coughing. It essentially is a hindrance to the human airflow system. Asthma is a continual inflammatory disease and estimates have shown that over 300 million people were affected with asthma in 2010. Genetic factors along with other environmental factors are related to the development of asthma. Air pollution and viral respiratory diseases have also been cited as a major triggering factor for the onset of asthma. Nurse run asthma care units are fast emerging as major and important therapy centers for those suffering from asthma.  Further research in the particular domain would allow careful decisions to be made at each step with a more comprehensive understanding.

Research along with a thorough assessment of various factors related to the nursing practices concerning asthma helps in a better understanding of the clinical subject. A study conducted to test the structural nurse-led discharge of children with acute asthma proved that with a proper education and management program; children in the intervention group were less likely to be admitted to the hospital in the next 6 months. The study involved 160 children in the age group of 12-16 having been admitted to the hospital for over 12 months [3].

Smoking is an abuse of drugs by release active substances present in the drugs into the breath of the smoker. Smoking is the most common form of recreational drug use. Smoking has a severe aftereffect on people and estimates say that around 4.9 million people all over the world die of smoking annually. Practice nurses are playing a pivotal role in smoking cessation. Nursing centers are the major players in promoting and supporting smoking cessations. Particular research found out that inadequate training was provided in tobacco education training to the graduate psychiatric nurses. It concluded that training of tobacco interventionists must be improved. [4]

Research in nursing practice further promotes the congregation of more extensive data and patterns. Research plays an absolutely pivotal role in the nursing practices simply because it provides a more comprehensive set of data and underlying patterns which can further be used to eradicate the disease and make the life of patients less stressful. Research is also an important tool for the recurrent development of knowledge for it generates information for the further congregation of facts for nursing investigations in a particular domain. Its need and importance are tangible in every respect.