QUESTION
Is there a difference between “common practice” and “best practice”?
When you first went to work for your current organization, experienced colleagues may have shared with you details about processes and procedures. Perhaps you even attended an orientation session to brief you on these matters. As a “rookie,” you likely kept the nature of your questions to those with answers that would best help you perform your new role.
Over time and with experience, perhaps you recognized aspects of these processes and procedures that you wanted to question further. This is the realm of clinical inquiry.
Clinical inquiry is the practice of asking questions about clinical practice. To continuously improve patient care, all nurses should consistently use clinical inquiry to question why they are doing something the way they are doing it. Do they know why it is done this way, or is it just because we have always done it this way? Is it a common practice or a best practice?
In this Assignment, you will identify clinical areas of interest and inquiry and practice searching for research in support of maintaining or changing these practices. You will also analyze this research to compare research methodologies employed.
To Prepare:
Review the Resources and identify a clinical issue of interest that can form the basis of a clinical inquiry. Keep in mind that the clinical issue you identify for your research will stay the same for the entire course.
Based on the clinical issue of interest and using keywords related to the clinical issue of interest, search at least four different databases in the Walden Library to identify at least four relevant peer-reviewed articles related to your clinical issue of interest. You should not be using systematic reviews for this assignment, select original research articles.
Review the results of your peer-reviewed research and reflect on the process of using an unfiltered database to search for peer-reviewed research.
Reflect on the types of research methodologies contained in the four relevant peer-reviewed articles you selected.
Part 1: Identifying Research Methodologies
After reading each of the four peer-reviewed articles you selected, use the Matrix Worksheet template to analyze the methodologies applied in each of the four peer-reviewed articles. Your analysis should include the following:
The full citation of each peer-reviewed article in APA format.
A brief (1-paragraph) statement explaining why you chose this peer-reviewed article and/or how it relates to your clinical issue of interest, including a brief explanation of the ethics of research related to your clinical issue of interest.
A brief (1-2 paragraph) description of the aims of the research of each peer-reviewed article.
A brief (1-2 paragraph) description of the research methodology used. Be sure to identify if the methodology used was qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods approach. Be specific.
A brief (1- to 2-paragraph) description of the strengths of each of the research methodologies used, including reliability and validity of how the methodology was applied in each of the peer-reviewed articles you selected.

Solution-Evidence-Based Project, Part 1: Identifying Research Methodologies

Scholarly studies have hailed hand hygiene as one of the most effective ways of reducing hospital-acquired infections. According to Sands & Aunger (2020), a simple hand wash is an effective way of preventing the spread of infections and can help cut down nearly 50% of all hospital-acquired infections in a facility. Hospital-acquired infections increase the duration of patient stay in a facility and impart high costs on the health systems as a whole and on individual patients (Sands & Aunger, 2020). This paper, therefore, reviews different qualitative and quantitative studies exploring the topic of hand hygiene among caregivers in healthcare facilities.

Full citation of selected article Article #1 Article #2 Article #3 Article #4
Ghaffari, M., Rakhshanderou, S., Safari-Moradabadi, A. et al. (2020). Exploring determinants of hand hygiene among hospital nurses: a qualitative study. BMC Nurs 19, 109. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-020-00505-y.

Augustine, L., McCollum, W., Brown, R., & Mourning-Star, P., (2019).A Qualitative Case Study Exploring Hand-Hygiene Standards in
An Intensive Care Unit. International Journal of Applied Management and Technology
Vol.18, Iss.1, Pages 126–141.
https://doi.org/10.5590/IJAMT.2019.18.1.09. Santosaningsih, D., Erikawati, D., Santoso, S. et al. (2017). Intervening with healthcare workers’ hand hygiene compliance, knowledge, and perception in a limited-resource hospital in Indonesia: a randomized controlled trial study. Antimicrob Resist Infect Control 6, 23 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13756-017-0179-y. Farmani, Z., Kargar, M., Khademian, Z. et al. (2019).The effect of training and awareness of subtle control on the frequency of hand hygiene among intensive care unit nurses. BMC Res Notes 12, 647 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-019-4635-z.

Why you chose this article and/or how it relates to the clinical issue of interest (include a brief explanation of the ethics of research related to your clinical issue of interest) I chose this article because it takes a qualitative approach to explore the determinants of hand hygiene among nurses in a healthcare facility. The article, therefore, relates to my clinical issue of interest, which is hand hygiene (HH) among health caregivers in a healthcare facility. I also chose the article because its research is conducted ethically with informed consent and confidentiality being observed when dealing with the research participants. I chose the article by Augustine et al. (2019) because it seeks to explore how hand hygiene standards are followed in an intensive care unit of a healthcare facility. The topic of focus of the article is, therefore, similar to my clinical issue of interest, which is hand hygiene. The research also followed all the ethical principles of research, including confidentiality and informed consent.

I choose the article because it focuses on the knowledge and perception of healthcare workers concerning hand hygiene compliance in a healthcare facility. The focus of the article is, therefore, similar to my clinical issue of interest, which is hand hygiene and how it can help reduce hospital-acquired infections in healthcare facilities. I also chose the article because it followed the ethical principles of research, including confidentiality and informed consent of research participants. I chose this study because it was conducted recently and also addressed a similar clinical issue of interest as my chosen topic of hand hygiene. The study also followed the central ethical principles of informed consent and confidentiality throughout.

Brief description of the aims of the research of each peer-reviewed article The aim of the Ghaffari et al. (2020) qualitative study was to explore the various determinants of HH among hospital nurses.
The aim of the Augustine et al. (2019) article is, therefore, to explore how non-compliance with the hand hygiene standards provided by the CDC and the lack of technology in a healthcare facility impacts the prevalence of hospital-acquired infections in an ICU unit.
The main aim of the Santosaningsih et al. (2017) study was to evaluate the effectiveness of different interventions in improving hand hygiene compliance among healthcare workers in a healthcare facility. The aim of the Farmani et al. (2019) study was, therefore, to determine the effect of awareness of subtle control after nurses working in an intensive care unit had been trained on hand hygiene compliance.

Brief description of the research methodology used Be sure to identify if the methodology used was qualitative, quantitative, or a mixed-methods approach. Be specific. Ghaffari et al. (2020) study adopted a qualitative research approach utilizing semi-structured interviews as the main data collection method. Augustine et al. (2019) utilize the qualitative study approach adopting the case study research method. Santosaningsih et al. (2017) study utilized the quantitative approach adopting the randomized controlled trial method. The Farmani et al. (2019) study adopted a quantitative approach and utilized the semi-experimental study method.
A brief description of the strengths of each of the research methodologies used, including reliability and validity of how the methodology was applied in each of the peer-reviewed articles you selected. The main strength of the semi-structured interview method utilized in the Ghaffari et al. (2020) study is that the method provided a great opportunity for the researchers to gather meaningful subjective data related to the research participants.
The semi-structured interview method adopted by Ghaffari et al. (2020) was less reliable because the interview questions might have deviated from the interview schedules making them difficult to repeat. However, the method had a high validity as most of the research participants answered the questions objectively as a result of assurance of confidentiality.

The main strength of the case study approach utilized in the Augustine et al. (2019) study was that it was inexpensive. The study could therefore be conducted with limited resources. The case study approach in the Augustine et al. (2019) article was reliable and valid. This is because The researcher utilized four criteria to confirm the trustworthiness of the qualitative research, which included confirmability, dependability, transferability, and credibility. The central strength of the randomized controlled trial method adopted in the Santosaningsih et al. (2017) study was that it allowed minimal bias among the researchers. Randomization, therefore, minimizes selection in allocation bias leading to more accurate results. The randomized controlled trial method was also valid and reliable. The different statistical tests utilized in the Santosaningsih et al. (2017), study such as the Fisher’s exact test and the Pearson chi-square static test, have therefore been shown to be highly reliable and valid. The main strength of the semi-experimental study method adopted in Farmani et al.’s (2019) study was that it allowed the researchers to control the variables more, which made it easy for them to comment on the cause and effect.
On the other hand, the use of the semi-experimental study method in the Farmani et al. (2019) study made it quite reliable in that this study was relatively easy to replicate. In the use of the semi-experimental study method in the Farmani et al. (2019), study the reliability and validity of different data collection tools such as observation forms were easily confirmed through established methods such as the kappa coefficient. Identifying Research Methodologies
General Notes/Comments The study is recent, which increases its chances of providing authoritative perspectives.

Through the use of a case study approach, the researchers in the study are able to focus on a large sample size which increases the accuracy of the study results. The randomized controlled trial approach preferred by the researchers made it easy for them to compare the differences between the intervention and control groups. The use of the semi-experimental study method makes it easy for the researchers to demonstrate that training related to hand hygiene increases the ability of caregivers to control the number of times they wash their hands in an intensive care unit.

References
Augustine, L., McCollum, W., Brown, R., & Mourning-Star, P., (2019).A Qualitative Case Study Exploring Hand-Hygiene
Standards in An Intensive Care Unit. International Journal of Applied Management and Technology
Vol.18, Iss.1, Pages 126–141.https://doi.org/10.5590/IJAMT.2019.18.1.09.
Farmani, Z., Kargar, M., Khademian, Z. et al. (2019).The effect of training and awareness of subtle control on the
frequency of hand hygiene among intensive care unit nurses. BMC Res Notes 12, 647 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-019-4635-z.
Ghaffari, M., Rakhshanderou, S., Safari-Moradabadi, A. et al. (2020). Exploring determinants of hand hygiene among
hospital nurses: a qualitative study. BMC Nurs 19, 109. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-020-00505-y.
Santosaningsih, D., Erikawati, D., Santoso, S. et al. (2017). Intervening with healthcare workers’ hand hygiene
compliance, knowledge, and perception in a limited-resource hospital in Indonesia: a randomized controlled trial study. Antimicrob Resist Infect Control 6, 23 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13756-017-0179-y.
Sands M, & Aunger R (2020). Determinants of hand hygiene compliance among nurses in US hospitals: A formative
research study. PLoS ONE 15(4): e0230573. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230573.