Nursing of Adults II

Assignment Requirements

-Describe a nursing or patient care concern, issue, or problem encountered during the Nursing of Adults II Clinical Experience

-Identify one or more of the QSEN Competencies referring to the specific knowledge, skills, or attitudes and behaviors for that particular competency(ies) as outlined in the Cronenwett et. a. (2007) article:

QSEN Competency Category(ies):

*patient-centered care
*teamwork collaboration
*evidence-based practice
*quality improvement
*safety
*informatics

It is a good idea to use this article in your references list and as a jumping off point to figure out how you're going to write about your selected topic. There are fantastic charts in the QSEN article that outline the various KSAs (knowledge, skills, and attitudes) that nurses must have related to each competency. 

*** I have sample papers for this assignment in my office!!! ***

Finding Scholarly Articles

Search strategies:

*Limit by date! Only search for content published within the past 5 years.

*Think of your keywords. The QSEN competency(ies) you've chosen make EXCELLENT keywords!

*Use quotes. This tells the database to search a term as a phrase. "health acquired infections" "electronic medical records"

*Use the truncator or asterisk * This simple command tells the database to give you anything that has the prefix you type followed by anything else. For example: 

nurs* = nurse, nurses, nursing

child* = child, children, childhood

adolesc* = adolescent, adolescents, adolescence

Search Examples-

safety AND "infection control" AND nurs*

teamwork AND medication administration AND nurses

"patient centered care" AND nurs* AND "hand hygiene"

Finding Websites and Other Information

You need at least 3 scholarly articles from one of the databases in the section above. However, many of the topics students write about for this paper have a great deal of information from various websites. 

You might try to do an Internet search on your topic and look for information from one of the following websites:

CDC - Centers for Disease Control - https://www.cdc.gov/

Like many government websites, the CDC website is extremely rich with content. You'll need to search it thoroughly to identify content you can use for your paper. But - you can trust that it is accurate and trustworthy.

The Joint Commission - https://www.jointcommission.org/​

There is a vast assortment of content on the Joint Commission website related to safety, standards, and best practices in hospitals. You might want to see if your topic can be found here too. Again, it is trustworthy and reliable.

NIH / NLM - National Institutes of Health / National Library of Medicine - https://www.nih.gov/ OR https://www.nlm.nih.gov/

Other websites - Use your best judgment when deciding to use other Internet content. Government websites are fantastic for health information. Other .orgs might be appropriate as well. Keep in mind the following:

-Currency of content

-Author of content

-Relevance of content

-Purpose of content

-Accuracy of content

APA Formatting & Citation

Your entire paper must be in APA format. This includes your references, in-text citations, title page, running head & page numbers, and any other sections you have subdivided in the paper. 

Consult the Purdue OWL for detailed help on APA (this is what I'll do if you come to see me in my office!) You may also want to check out the RVCC Library Citation guide about APA formatting. The RVCC Library guide has a video which walks you through setting up your paper in APA format as well as a video on creating a running head (VERY IMPORTANT!)