This week's graded topics relate to the following Course Outcome (CO).

1. CO 2:Apply research principles to the interpretation of the content of published research studies.  (POs 4 & 8)
2. CO 5: Recognize the role of research findings in evidence-based practice. (POs 7 & 8)

Professional nurses rely on research findings to inform practice decisions; they use critical thinking to apply research directly to specific patient care situations.

Think about an independent nursing practice problem you care passionately about and would be interested in searching for evidence. *For the below questions, medical/doctor/physician problems will not be used, for example, treatments such as medications or diagnostics such as cardiac catherizations. Also, broad practice problems such as staffing issues, workforce issues, or patient ratios will not be used as this is an organizational/system/political/administrative/multi-stakeholder problem which nursing cannot solve independently.

1. Reflect on nursing practice and describe a significant nursing clinical issue, topic of interest, or practice problem that is important to you. Describe why you chose the problem/topic.
2. Develop a searchable, clinical question in the PICO(T) format for your nursing practice problem. *To format your clinical question using PICO(T), use the AAACN Toolkit: Template for Asking PICOT Questions found in your required reading or access the following link.

https://www.aaacn.org/sites/default/files/documents/misc-docs/1e_PICOT_Questions_template.pdf (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

1. List each of your PICOT elements.
2. Share why you care about this nursing practice problem and why you believe the problem would benefit from finding the best evidence.