The issues that a family nurse practitioner faces are numerous and challenging. Often requiring one to use an array of management skills, they pose a serious threat to the patient’s health and wellbeing. To identify the current problems in the job of a Family Nurse Practitioner, I searched for the appropriate articles in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR) and the Health and Web of Science database (WoS).
The choice of the databases was predetermined by the fact that they provided the sources that were relevant to my topic and contained only academic resources. Moreover, though widely acclaimed as trustworthy databases, the two locations mentioned above do not appear often on the lists of studies carried out by other students, which makes the resources not as commonplace as CINAHL or PubMed.
In both cases, the search could be deemed quite successful. After accessing the corresponding databases, I located the search-by-keywords window and typed “family nurse” into each one. After pressing “enter,” I received a variety of results that were quite relevant to my search. The further steps in locating the article in WoS were different from those of CDSR.
Particularly, in CDSR, I had to set the date range so that out of 158 results retrieved, only the ones published in 2012–2016 could be viewed. Afterward, it was necessary to include an extra set of keywords to narrow my search down: “nurse practitioner.” While the previous step returned 70 results, the one mentioned above helped shrink the number of items available to 42. The sixth article (by Smith, Wallace, Dawd, and Fortin (2016)) appeared to be suitable.
The search process in the WoS database, in its turn, was somewhat different. While the first search returned 10,941 papers, the articles displayed in the results list were rather old and, therefore, suggested rather dated information. Thus, I had to go back to the Search menu and select the year range (from 2012 to 2016). This time, the search resulted in receiving a total of 5,246 results. To narrow down the number of results retrieved, I located the filtering options on the left of the articles list and browsed the “Categories” box. After checking “Nursing,” I received 2,777 items. Then, articles were chosen as the document type, which shrunk the total number to 2,504. Finally, being interested in age issues, I chose “age” as the primary subject in the corresponding box on the left. Afterward, I received a total of five search results, which I chose the first article by Gomez, Curiale, and Higgison (2013).
Choosing the right location for retrieving an article is not an easy task. However, once applying the corresponding skills, one will be able to locate a proper source. Nevertheless, one must be cautious when considering the trustworthiness and credibility of a particular database. Writing an academic literature review, one must incorporate the information that comes from the latest and the most credible sources; otherwise, the outcomes of the analysis cannot be considered valid.
Reference List
Gomez , J. B., Curiale, N., & Higgison, I. J. (2013). Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of home palliative care services for adults with advanced illness and their caregivers (review). Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 6(CD007760), 1-280.
Smith, S., Wallace, E., Dawd, T., & Fortin, M. (2016). Interventions for improving outcomes in patients with multimorbidity in primary care and community settings (review). Cochrane Database of Systematic Review, 2016(3), 1-114.