ESSAY: Appraising the literature

Discuss your strategies for conducting a systematic search/review of the literature in order to answer the question:- Which educational techniques or strategies most effectively prevent hospital readmissions among Congestive Heart Failure population?
Explain how you will critically appraise the literature you have selected to determine the best evidence for this assignment.

ANSWER

Appraising the Literature

The first step in conducting a systematic literature review is formulating/ critically evaluating the formulated research question (Winchester & Salji, 2016). In this case, this has been done. The formulated question must, however, reflect the PICOS elements which include: the population (P), which in this case comprise people with heart failure, the intervention (I) which entails the educational techniques or strategies, the comparison (C) could be other techniques or failing to use any, the outcome (O) is preventing hospital readmissions and lastly the study design (S) that evaluates the kind of studies to be included or excluded. Since the research question is clear, it is now time to appraise the literature. The next step is to identify literature related to the research question based on appropriate inclusion and exclusion criteria. In this case, for an article to be used in the review of literature, they must have brought out some of the educational techniques and strategies that can help reduce or prevent hospital readmissions (Guindo et al., 2012). It must also identify the chronic illness as congestive heart failure. The articles should be peer-reviewed in that they must have been published recently (at least 5 years) and with…