Dissertation (5000-7000 words)
Dissertation Question: What is the role of oral care in the prevention of ventilated associated pneumonia in critically ill patients?
PREFERENCE: UK REFERENCES
Introduction:
The introduction needs to place the research question or topic in context. In particular, this part of the dissertation needs to explain and justify the focus on the chosen topic and the particular aspect of that topic which is concentrated upon. This might be in terms of the seriousness of a particular condition, its policy importance e.g. UK policy on end of life care, its prevalence, cost to the National Health Service, some continuing uncertainty about the most effective way to treat a particular problem or the organisation of the workforce etc. This needs to be done with reference to relevant literature and should convince the reader that the dissertation is worthwhile i.e. it should be informed by current debate and capable of generating interesting findings. You may need to explain some key terms or concepts to the reader if you think that they are not generally known. Ensure the aims and objectives are clearly defined and explained. This is a criterion that is often poorly addressed.
• Background of topic
• Defining Concepts
• Rationale
• Implication
• Statistical Info
Method : (compare 10 articles provided )
Detail how data sources were selected (types of manual search which databases and/or search engines you used) search terms and which inclusion and exclusion criteria used (See relevant chapters in key texts). As stated earlier we recommend you create a Summary Table to set out various characteristics of your included studies and the information in your chosen studies. This table must be included as one of your appendices. A logically laid out table also enables you to see at a glance the range of studies and research methods in your selection of studies. In addition it also helps you to identify the main characteristic of the research that you will be exploring in your literature review section. If a critical appraisal framework is used then it should be identified and justification of use outlined.
Literature Review (your appraisal of the papers) Results/findings:
This main section of the dissertation presents the papers included. We recommend introductory comments about the literature as a whole followed by the detailed presentation and critique of each paper. This would include general comments about the nature of evidence itself – is it largely qualitative, quantitative or a combination of both? Is there high or low consensus? Are there different schools of thought? After this comes the detailed presentation of the papers. One approach is to divide and discuss the papers in groups. You can divide the papers into groups depending on, for example, their findings or their methods. You can think of findings-based groups as something like the ‘themes’ that qualitative researchers sometimes use to organise a large amount of collected data. You can use the themes as subheadings. Alternatively you could divide them according to some methodological criteria, for example groups of studies that used different measures of job satisfaction, or burnout. Alternatively you could divide them by their findings e.g. one group of studies that found a certain intervention was effective and then those which found it ineffective. In this section we would expect the following:
The context of each of the studies e.g. ‘… in a small qualitative study carried out in a primary health care setting in England in the late 1990s…’ A brief summary of the methods used in each paper and a comment, if appropriate, on the limitations of this e.g. very small or unrepresentative samples, poorly defined concepts, lack of detail about methods (the most likely limitation), conclusions which do not follow from findings. Are there any problematic ethical issues? The marking criteria on related to the ethical issues in the paper is often not addressed by students. A summary of the findings of each paper should be given.
Discussion:
Following the presentation and critique of the papers we expect a general discussion of what that collection of papers have told us. This section of your dissertation should summarise the overall outcome of the review. It should pose the question what do we now know about this topic? The discussion section should include the following:
• Discussion of major areas of agreement and disagreement in the literature. Relate to wider context • Strengths and limitations of the literature as a whole e.g. were the studies generally small and of poor quality? • A reflection on your overall approach to the review e.g. limitations of time, resources, experience, access to literature (small amount, difficulties finding) –how did these impact on the quality of the review that you carried out? By identifying the limitations this will help to put your results in context/perspective. • Crucially the relevance and importance of the overall findings to practice, policy, education, workforce planning etc. Any Recommendation or implications for practice where appropriate should be thoroughly discussed. Are there any limitations of these recommendation/implications for practice? (see marking criteria). This is a key subsection.
• Ethical considerations
