Problem-oriented paper: three articles, three theories

The choice of problem governs everything downstream, so make it against the requirements rather than from frustration. You need three nursing research articles and three related nursing theories, which means a problem that has been studied and that a theory has something to say about. Alarm fatigue, missed nursing care, hand hygiene compliance, delayed mobilisation, discharge teaching and readmission, and shift-handover information loss all satisfy both. A problem confined to one unit's staffing rota will not. State the problem observationally in the introduction — what you saw, how often, what followed — rather than as a general claim about health care, because the paper is problem-oriented and the observation is what gives it standing. Say too how you came to notice it, because a problem you were told about reads differently from one you saw repeatedly and only later recognised as a pattern, and the second is what this assignment is asking for.

Use the assignment's headings exactly as given, since they are the marking scheme: Introduction, Discussion of research findings, Related theories, Application, Conclusion. The Discussion section reports what the three articles found and where they disagree, which is more useful than three summaries in sequence. The Related theories section is where papers weaken: pick theories that do explanatory work rather than theories you can name. Benner explains why a novice misses what an expert notices; Lewin's change model explains why the last improvement effort failed at refreezing; the Health Belief Model explains non-adherence to a protocol. Say briefly how each relates. Then Application has to do something the earlier sections did not: analyse research and theory together and make a case, either for further research or for a change in the standard of care. Choose one and argue it: if the evidence is thin, the honest case is for research.