As you read closer and closer to the end of a research report, you should start asking, “What are the implications of what this researcher found?”   In other words now that the findings show X what is the Y that we do in response?

Sometimes the researcher labels a section IMPLICATIONS. Other times implications are included in the DISCUSSION section.

What implications you look for may depend on your role. Are you a direct, inpatient care RN? Then you want to know what the research implies about the need to maintain or change practice.   Are you in staff development or teaching clinical students? Then you want to know whether this means you should be teaching something or some “how-to” differently.   Management/administrator? Then what does this mean for leadership or organizations. And,…if you’re a researcher, then you want to know what is the next question raised by this study, OR perhaps does this study need to be repeated before we can feel confident in the findings.   (Of course, if you’re a student looking at a study may mean that you are one step closer to completing one of those evidence-based assignment papers.)

If you look carefully, you will see that the researcher tells you what they think the implications are for patient care, education, management, research, students, patients, or others.

Research does not give final answers. Exhilaratingly a research article often raises more questions than it answers—especially because any research project can only narrowly be designed to examine one teeny area of reality.   (OK. Perhaps only researchers would find that thrilling.)

So, as you read think: What do these research findings mean for RN practice?

Critical Thinking Practice: Find the implications in this excerpt from the Discussion section of Brown & McCormack (2005):  The study revealed that accurate and holistic pain assessment for older people were (sic) deficient in the acute surgical setting…. As a number of older people experienced hearing difficulties, it was also possible that patients did not respond because they misunderstood or simply did not hear what they were being asked. Herr and Mobily (1991) suggest that a reliable assessment of the older persons’ pain can be best obtained if they are offered privacy rather than asked to discuss pain in a public location. Whilst this can be difficult to achieve in a ward environment, measures such as drawing the curtains or moving closer to the patient, may afford some improved degree of enhanced communication and privacy for pain assessment. (p.1295)

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*In earlier posts at http://discoveringyourinnerscientist.blogspot.com/ , I summarized what titles, abstracts, introductions, methods, results, and discussions sections of a research report are all about.