Evidence-Based Practice Translation of Research in Evidence-Based Practice

Nursing involves men and women who are willing to help the patients with their skills like health maintenance, recovery of ill or injured people and the treatment. They develop a care plan for the patient sometimes in collaboration with the physicists or therapists. This paper discusses the current nursing practice in which I am involved and needs to be changed.

Identification of a Current Nursing Practice Requiring Change

Description of the Current Nursing Practice

Children of all age groups are facing a grave problem these days: obesity. It is considered as a chronic disease when the weight-gain reaches dangerously increased level, which becomes risky for the health. The raised body mass becomes dangerous for children and some schools are now looking into this matter with concern. They are sending notices to the parents to take care of their child's diet, and within the schools, the management is trying to take help of nurses so that their intervention might prove helpful in reducing child obesity. An effective strategy needs to be formulated to alleviate the effects of obesity in children and some steps have been taken for that purpose. The strategy involves contact with children and parents on their dietary and general health education, and increased activities for them (Clark, 2004, p. 29). It is well understood that strategy implementation of this problem needs intervention of the health professionals, such as school nurses. In recent studies, four researches were probed to measure the reduction in child obesity due to nurse intervention, out of which only two show positive results in intervention groups as compared to control groups (Berkowitz & Borchard, 2009, p. 4).

Weight management interventions in adolescents were studied so that efficacy of the school nurses weight management could be investigated (Pbert et al., 2013, p. 182). Six high schools were taken as a sample, from where eighty-four obese adolescents were selected. They were in grade 9 to 11 and were asked to complete behavioral and psychological assessments. A two-month and two three-month follow ups were recorded and it was revealed that nurse intervention helped in controlling their weight. It improved their weight as the obese adolescents were able to control their cola intake and fast foods once in a week, which showed health betterments.

Another study was undertaken to observe the effects of providing education on weight management among children, adolescents and their parents along with reducing BMI index. The foundation of this project was Primary Care Healthy Choices Intervention Program for Overweight and Obese School-aged Children and their Parents (Jenike, 2013, p. 15). Remote methods were used to increase their knowledge about healthy nutrition and physical activity. A seven-week, one group pre-/post-test design was used for this purpose. The results showed that that project was informative for the children and their parents via remote methods such as telephone counseling. A decreased BMI percentile was observed along with increased information regarding physical activity and healthy diet benefits.

Why the Practice Needs Change

The current practice needs to be changed since dramatic increase in children weight becomes perilous for their health. Most of the reasons for child obesity include lack of exercise and less time spent on physical activities. Today, children are more into using laptops and video games rather than going out and playing in the open play grounds with their friends. Even if the children decide to hang out, they do that at one of their friend's place and arrange competitions on their video games. A small example of this lack of physical activity is proved by the study indicating that less than five percent of school children now go to school via cycling as compared to more than 80% around twenty years ago (Clark, 2004, p. 29).

School nurses or those that work in hospitals or other health units should be able perform their primary health care tasks, such as weight management in obese children in order to reduce weight after treatment of 3 months or more. Nurses should be able to use their critical thinking skills for better diagnosis and devising of treatment plans. A weight management program could be devised by the nurses to see if the weight in obese children is controlled or not and how much change is observed, if any. It can then be compared to no nurse intervention so that a clear comparison can be made between nurse intervention for weight management and no intervention at all. Secondly, a three-month check would ensure the effect of a particular intervention strategy.

Part B: Identification of Key Stakeholders That Are Part of the Change

The key stakeholders that would be the part of change are nurses, doctors (physicians, therapists etc.), top management of the health care unit or hospital, school management, and parents and children.

Role of Each Stakeholder

The role of nurses would be to give full care to the obese children with their expert thinking skills and knowledge of the field. The doctors would help and assist the nurses in completing their task that the...

The top management could help in intervention and giving the nurses the autonomy for effective weight management and loss; they could make policies that are in accordance with the requirements of such change. The school management can make policies and give support to the nurses for the implementation of an effective weight management program. Finally, the children would be the ones who would be benefitted from the change, in the form of better uninterrupted treatment from the nurses without any delays in fulfilling tasks along with the parents who would be satisfied with their child's progress in losing weight and leading a better and healthier lifestyle.
Part C: Evidence-Based Critique Table

Implications

The study would help in developing of data for the improvement of nursing practices and assist weight management practices throughout the state.

For future implications, the study can serve as a source to improve nurse language in weight management and the need for realizing the change in weight.

The findings can be used to learn how weight loss can be discussed with the patients and eliminating yany negative consequences as well.

Data for childhood obesity could be obtained and more effective strategies could be formulated for building policies for better child health in future.

The study can help in weight loss via primary health care practices and devising in supporting treatments for the problem.

Study limitations

Sample of nurses was selected form one university; unexplained variance persisted; more research needed for validity of results.

Interviews present the risk of reporting bias as nurses might present themselves as good practitioners.

The study focused more on clinical beliefs rather than social and moral ones; absence of theoretical concepts.

None mentioned

Clinical doctors might be giving advice for management for weight but not documenting it.

Results

Self-efficacy theory helped in predicting the weight management practices both directly sand positively. It was also revealed that self-efficacy theory along with perceived skills, training, education and advocacy improve weight management practices.

The nurse mentioned two roles they had to play: one was providing obesity management and the other was to broach the patients who needed weight managed routine-wise. Nurses were confused about their roles.

Three barriers were identified: limited understanding of the topic, negative consequences, time and resources for such sensitive topic.

Intervention programs faced challenges of funds and stigmatization of obese children.

Interventions for weight management were required mostly for women, older individuals and those with deprivations.

Intervention and outcome measures

The response rate of the survey was 71.4%. A moderate level of weight management practices was observed.

Audio recorders were used to document the interviews and were analyzed by a thematic approach.

Content and thematic analyses were used to analyze the interviews.

Interventions were family0-baseds, school-based, community, play and hospital based.

Interventions for body weight managements, advice, referrals, and drugs were included. Outcome measures were rate of body weight management and time to intervene.

Level/design/subjects

A questionnaire was designed for a sample of 588 RNs based on socio-demographic variables, psycho-social variables and professional weight management practices.

Qualitative semi-structured interviews were used with a sample of 18 nurses in two local health board areas.

Use of qualitative study with the help of Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF). A sample of 34 health practitioners was taken.

Search from the databases of CINAHL, MEDLINE, ERIC and Academic Search Premier from the year 1999 to 2011.

A cohort sample of 91-413 overweight patients was selected, aging 30-100 years.

Study objectives

The purpose of this study was to observe self-efficacy theory-based representation in comprehending the performance of Registered Nurses (RNs) related to weight management.

To explore how good practice nurses are in managing obesity with their primary care practices and to determine barriers in achieving their goals.

To investigate the general practitioners' and primary care nurses' apprehended obstacles in broach the topic of weight in common practice.

To identify various factors affecting childhood obesity, interventions and governmental actions for addressing this challenge.

Studying access to interventions for weight management for obese UK primary health care patients.

Author/year

Zhu, D.Q., Norman, I.J., & While, A.E. (2013)

Phillips, K., Wood, F., & Kinnersley, P. (2014)

Blackburn, M., Stathi, A., Keogh, E., & Eccleston, C. (2015)

Karnik, S. & Kanekar, A. (2012)

Booth, H.P., Prevost,…