University Nursing Report: Mental Health Training Module Appraisal

This report critically appraises a quantitative study on a mental health training module for advanced nurse practitioner students. The review highlights issues with the original paper's title, citation accuracy, and limited external references. Despite these shortcomings, the report praises the well-structured and organized format, which includes detailed sections on the problem statement, research objectives, methodology, and implications. The reviewer effectively analyzes the study's strengths and weaknesses, providing a clear summary and laying the groundwork for future research. The report emphasizes the importance of critical appraisal in nursing practice, guiding practitioners to discuss research findings and relate them to practice domains. The use of a single external source is noted as a weakness, contrasting with the need for a broader literary base for robust critical analysis, as highlighted by Hoagwood et al. (2014). The report's strengths include its clear language, logical structure, and detailed analysis of the research components. The implications for future research are also highlighted, making this a useful resource for students.

1Running head: NURSING
Nursing
Name of student:
Name of university:
Author note:

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Critical appraisal of research articles is an important source of clinical information for
nursing practice that guides the way for better care delivery. Trustworthy reviews govern
practitioners to discuss the research findings and relate them to relevant domains of practice
(LoBiondo-Wood & Haber, 2017). The review paper under discussion is a critical appraisal
of a quantitative study on the topic of mental health training module in relation to advanced
nurse practitioner students. The selection of research paper has been noteworthy since it
revolves around mental health training modules, a key research area in the contemporary era.
Training modules provide nurse practitioner students with the latest approaches to mental
health issues (Dimoff et al., 2016).
In the first place, it is to be highlighted that the review paper does not appropriate
mention the topic of the paper under scrutiny. While the title of the paper is “Measuring the
influence of a mental health training module on the therapeutic optimism of advanced nurse
practitioner students in the United Kingdom”, the paper mentions the topic to be mental
health training in relation to advanced nurse practitioner students”, omitting the significant
term ‘module’. In addition, the citation of the article is wrong in the introductory paragraph
as an in-text citation of a separate resource has been given in place of that of the actual one. A
vital issue with the paper is that only one external source has been cited as the reference
while critically appraising the research paper. According to Hoagwood et al., (2014) a
research paper is to be critically appraised by citing a large pool of resources based on which
the criticism is done. The quality of a review paper can only be enhanced when it is based on
a strong pool of literary sources.
The review, however, is a well-structured one, making a good impression on the
readers. It is well documented and organised into different sections that are logically
arranged. The first section focuses on the introduction of the article under review, and moves
on to analyse the statement of the problem, statement of research purpose, literature review,

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study framework, research objective, study variables and demographic variables, research
design, population sample and setting, measurement strategy, data collection, data analysis,
researcher’s interpretation, study generalisation, implications for future practice, limitation
and recommendation. The use of English language is sound, and the construction of
sentences are proper, making it a good reading. Each section of the review clearly describes
the information obtained from the paper. The author has given much attention to point out the
key facts and included them in the review paper.
A separate section has been devoted to analyse the study’s strengths and weaknesses,
making it a praiseworthy approach. This section is further subdivided into the different
components of the study, making it easier for the readers to differentiate between the same.
Further, the paper provides a good summary of the article and lays the foundation for future
research in this area. The implications for future research has also been highlighted in this
section. The researcher has attempted to mention in brief the key insights drawn from the
research.

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References
Dimoff, J. K., Kelloway, E. K., & Burnstein, M. D. (2016). Mental health awareness training
(MHAT): The development and evaluation of an intervention for workplace
leaders. International Journal of Stress Management, 23(2), 167.
Hoagwood, K., Jensen, P.S. &Fisher, C.B. eds., (2014). Ethical issues in mental health
research with children and adolescents. Routledge.
LoBiondo-Wood, G., & Haber, J. (2017). Nursing Research-E-Book: Methods and Critical
Appraisal for Evidence-Based Practice. Elsevier Health Sciences.