Research for Practice: Management of Viral Illness for Child Patients Attending OOH GP Services

1Running head: RESEARCH FOR PRACTICE
Research for practice
Name of student:
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RESEARCH FOR PRACTICE
Senior nurse practitioners play a significant role in healthcare services across
communities since they are dedicated to improving the quality of life of patients. Such
professionals work at different care settings that have been put in place to serve the patient
population at varying places and at different times of the day as per the convenience of the
patients, one of which is OOH GP services (DiCenso et al., 2014). The NHS, United
Kingdom, pledges to serve the community through Out of Hour (OOH) GP Services that is
outside the normal time frame of GP practices. The exact time of such services might vary
between different healthcare settings, but the common link between such services is that they
all aim at providing services in case of an emergency situation threatening the life of the
patient. Such a service would include a team of proficient health care professionals working
in urgent care centres, primary care centres and other such facilities. The access to such
services is easy with options such as telephonic service (Warren et al., 2015).
I work as a senior nurse practitioner for a reputed Out Of Hour (OOH) General
Practitioners (GP) service that can be accessed through the 111 telephone service number.
The individuals from the community can ring the number for seeking medical attention when
the usual GP services are closed at the odd hours of the day. These timings include the
evening, bank holidays, night weekends. My role as a nurse practitioner comes into play in
this regard in the triage of these patients after they have been put in queues by the individuals
handling the call. I am accountable for providing services urgently that includes directing
them for emergency cases and booking appointments. In addition, I am also responsible for
advising patients to visit local GP depending on the needs after assessing the present
problems. As a nurse practitioner involved in an OOH GP service, I am supposed to address
different health needs of the patients. One such health concern that I need to address
repeatedly is viral illness suffered by children. Viral infections are common among
individuals of all ages but are more concentrated among infants and children. The common

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illnesses that children present include soar throat, viral fever, bronchiolitis, tonsillitis and
diarrhoea. These might be mild or severe depending on the immunity of the child. However,
there are some serious virus illnesses that need urgent care for avoiding fatal consequences
which include measles and pox (Kool et al., 2016). Though most of the viral illness can be
treated and managed with appropriate treatment, a number of them are very distinctive and
needs a crucial diagnosis before setting up the treatment plan (Forster & Fraser, 2017).
Management of viral illness for children is a difficult task since children are more vulnerable
to suffer adverse health complications after viral infection. Moreover, children take a longer
time to get cured completely. Nurse, therefore, have additional responsibility to care for
children presenting with viral illnesses. Previous studies throw light on how children with
viral illness are to be managed and treated wherein data have been collected through different
methodologies (Hockenberry et al., 2016). As a nurse professional, I perceive it is my duty to
research on the best practices that when applied in my practice would help me to care for
children gaining help from the OOH services for their viral illnesses. An appropriate research
would only ensure that I am able to gather the best evidence and comprehend them
appropriately in alignment with my professional goals.
The present paper aims at developing a relevant and coherent research question that
considers the chosen health issue of management of viral illness for child patients attending
the OOH GP services. The objective is to highlight the best means by which the selected
issue can be best researchered for answering the question.
For gaining valuable information on a research topic, it is necessary to frame a proper
research question. Such a question needs to be concise and clear and must have a definite
focus which is answerable. The question also needs to be relevant to the practice of the nurse
professional in light of the services that are provided in the concerned healthcare setting
(Nieswiadomy & Bailey, 2017). The research question that is to be considered for the present

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research is “How can viral illnesses of children attending OOH GP Services be best
managed?” The research question has been crafted for the researcher to learn more about the
subject of caring for children suffering from viral illness. The research question has been
formed as a fundamental element of the research process and clarity has been maintained
while framing it (Parahoo, 2014).
After outlining the research question, one must take the initiative to understand the
process by which the research is to be conducted in a stepwise fashion. Looking at the
different research paradigms and methodologies and critically analysing each for
understanding the applicability of each in the present context is a vital step (Houser, 2016).
As opined by Fain (2017) the research methodology is to act as the systematic plan for
carrying out a research that might be based on diverse research principles. I must, therefore,
choose the appropriate research paradigm that would enable me to organise the available
information in a condensed manner into one conceptual and cohesive structure. Research is
the best tool for increasing existing knowledge, and there are two basic ways of conducting
research, that is quantitative research and qualitative research. A researcher must critically
analyse the two research methods for understanding which one is aligned with the selected
research question (LoBiondo-Wood & Haber, 2017). In a qualitative research, the focus is on
an exploratory investigation that helps in gaining knowledge of the underlying reasons and
real-life conditions for the research question. In contrast, in a quantitative research, the
emphasis is on quantifying the manner in which a certain issue is treated using suitable
statistics (Houser, 2016). In the present case, it would be necessary to analyse which method
among the two would be appropriate for the present research question.
Qualitative research is the form of research in which the researcher can gain valuable
insight and understanding of the problem setting (Alligood, 2014). As per the authors, it is the
exploratory and unstructured research method studying the highly complex phenomena