Writing your evidence based

practice thesis
Narrating the journey of your evidence based
practice dissertation. Building the architecture of
your dissertation

Alan Glasper and Colin Rees

How to Write Your Nursing Dissertation, First Edition. Alan Glasper and Colin Rees.
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
 Writing your evidence-based practice thesis

The students have been asked

by their supervisors to use the
decimal notation system
commonly known as the civil
service format to write each
section of their dissertation:

Sue and Sam are writing

up their dissertation
 Writing your evidence based practice
thesis
Sue does not really understand the decimal
Use civil service format to notation format of report writing and her
write each section of friend Sam gives her a good suggestion. He
asks her to examine any government health
your thesis. i.e. care report. Sue accesses one of the National
Service Frameworks and suddenly it becomes
• 1.1 clear to her!

• 1.2
• 1.3
• 1.4 etc
 Suggested chapter formatting for a
health care dissseration
Many dissertations are formatted via five
separate chapters
1. Introduction to the parameters of the
subject
2. Searching the literature and sourcing
the evidence
3. Critical appraisal of the papers
4. Conclusions and implications of the
literature critique
5. Implementing evidence in practice
 Chapter 1-Introduction
Selecting your topic which should be relevant to your field of
practice.
1.1 Introduction to your topic e.g. writers disease
1.2 what is writers disease?
1.3 What is the prevalence of writers disease (in your clinical
area)?
1.4 The management of writers disease
1.5 The role of health policy in the management of writers
disease
1.6 The role of evidence based practice
1.7 Formulating your question using the PICO/SPICE framework
 Chapter 2 –Searching the literature and
Sourcing the evidence
2.1 Searching the literature –models of searching (e.g. Timmins F, McCabe C (2005)
How to Conduct an effective literature search .Nursing Standard 20(11) pp 41-47)
2.2 The hierarchy of evidence –what is best and why
2.3 Navigating the data bases in selecting evidence. What are the bibliographic data
bases?-consider a table.
2.4 Searching the literature by hand
2.5 Using grey literature
2.6 Searching the Cochrane and other eminent data bases (e.g. CRD-centre for reviews
and dissemination, Joanna Briggs Institute for Evidence Based Nursing)
2.7 Using expert opinions
2.8 Using the internet (Google scholar etc –but what are the limitations?)
2.9 NHS or other health service bench marked practice publications such as National
Service Frameworks
2.10 Your data base search strategy –preparing your mind map
 Chapter 2 –Searching the literature and
Sourcing the evidence
Example of Databases that can be searched e.g. clown humour
research
AMED 1985-2005
• Search terms: (Laughter/ or clowns or “Wit and humor”/) AND
(child or pediatric or paediatric)
• BNI British Nursing Index 1985-2005
• Search terms: (humour/or clowns or laughter) AND (child or
pediatric or paediatric)
CINAHL 1982-2005
• Search terms:(Hospitals, Pediatric/ or Child, Hospitalized/ )AND
(clowns or laughter)
 Chapter 2 –Searching the literature and
Sourcing the evidence
Embase 1980 to 2005 Week 18
• Search terms: (Pediatric hospital/ or Child Hospitalization/)
AND (clown or laughter)
• HMIC Health management information consortia 1983-2005
• Humour/ or clown or laughter

Medline 1966 to April Week 3 2005

• Search terms: (Laughter therapy/or Laughter/ or “Wit and
humor”/ or clown) AND (Hospitals , pediatric/or Child
hospitalized/)
 Chapter 2 –Searching the literature and
Sourcing the evidence
Psycinfo 1985 to April Week 4 2005
• Search terms (Humor/ or clown or laughter) AND (hospitalized patients or
pediatrics)
Web of Science 1981-2005
• Search terms: (laughter or clown) and (child or pediatric or paediatric)
ASSIA Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts 1987-2005
• Search term: clown
Index of Theses (including Irish section)
• Search terms: clowns or laughter
British library catalogue 1)clowns and (therapy or hospital*) 2) laughter and
(therapy or hospital*)
Library of congress clowns and (therapy or hospital*)
Artilcesfirst Database: ArticleFirst Query: kw: therapy and ti: laughter
 Chapter 2 –Searching the literature and
Sourcing the evidence
2.11 Using Boolean logic, wild cards and truncations
(consider a table )
2.12 Inclusion and exclusion criteria (consider a table)
2.13 Prepare short list of papers identified –consider
putting in a table format with author ,title, journal and
year of publication, the data base and a brief outline of
the study, double star the final selection of the papers
youa re recommended to review (e.g.3-5 papers (more
for PhD) which need to be data driven)
 Chapter 2 –Searching the literature and
Sourcing the evidence
• List accurately using the Harvard reference system
your final selection of papers and place in a table.
• Use the “Savage and Callery grid method” of
displaying the primary attributes of your selected
papers.
 Chapter 3 –Critical appraisal
3.1 What is critical appraisal
3.2 Types of critiquing tools
3.3 Selecting your critiquing tool (s)
3.4 Following each step of the tool critique your papers.
3.5 Individually or collectively? (collectively usually)
3.6 The results or data analysis section requires a preliminary
understanding and description of the statistics used in the
papers being reviewed . Consider a table!
Chapter 3 Table of statistical tests
Statistical test used in papers Definition of statistical test

1. Chi-square Statistical method to test whether two (or more) variables are: (1) independent or (2) homogenous.
The chi-square test for independence examines whether knowing the value of one variable helps to
estimate the value of another variable.

2.

3.

4.

5.
Chapter 4 The conclusions and implications
of the literature critique
• What is the value of the research findings for
your field of practice?
• Consider a table showing the strengths and
limitations of the studies you have critiqued .
• Summarise the evidence from each paper
 Chapter 5 –Implementing evidence based
practice in your own clinical domain
• Managing change in clinical practice (consider using Kurt Lewin’s work)
• What is the role of leadership in the management of change (consider the
work of the RCN and The Kings Fund)
• What are the barriers to change ?
• How to overcome barriers (use and reference High Impact Actions: The
Essential Collection which can be sourced from
http://www.institute.nhs.uk/index.php?option=com_joomcart&Itemid=19
4&main_page=document_product_info&cPath=83&products_id=731&Joo
mcartid=ldutp22rsq5n3h4ts66hneeff6
• Reflection (reflect on your own dissertation journey using a reflective
model such as Gibbs )
• Using appendices (ensure they are well signposted)
 Binding your dissertation
• Most universities
Typical regualtions
1.Students are required to submit a dissertation of
10,000 words excluding diagrams, appendices,
require a dissertation to references and bibliography.

be professionally bound 2.Two typewritten copies must be submitted. The

and will require two dissertation must be typed on one side only with
double spacing throughout and a margin 1" on each
copies to be submitted. side. (A4 white paper.) Two self-bound copies must
be presented, one of which will be returned to the
student.

NB Binding: This must be a soft binding and should

be preferably undertaken by a university or college
bindery or an appropriate shop.
 Sue and Sam complete and submit
their dissertations
Remember to:
• Use your supervisor wisely
• Consider word limits
• Ensure the correct format
• Proofread your work (typos and
spelling)
• Ensure that your references are
accurate
• Bind the dissertation and give the
bindery at least a weeks notice.
• Ask for an extension if you need it in
a timely manner not the day before it
is due in!