Research Report: Prevention and Early Treatment of Influenza (Flu)

This report presents a research assignment focusing on influenza prevention and early treatment, tailored for an enrolled nurse working in a remote clinic setting. The assignment follows a structured approach, beginning with identifying research areas and formulating a research question. It outlines the rationale for the research, emphasizing the improvement of nursing practice and knowledge enhancement. The research objectives encompass understanding prevention methods, early treatment options, patient reactions, and the potential for home-based care. The study connects with scientific research, highlighting ongoing efforts to develop new medications and modify dietary habits to combat influenza. The methodology involves gathering information from databases like PubMed and CINAHL, evaluating sources, and organizing data for analysis. The report prioritizes relevant information, compares and contrasts sources, and synthesizes findings to support the research objectives, including the identification of relevant articles and the analysis of prevention and treatment methods. The report also includes the key findings of the research to improve the practice of the enrolled nurses.

ASSESSMENT: Written report - Research assignment
S/NS result given. Must attain a satisfactory result.
Assignment INSTRUCTIONS – Topic 1
 Use the template provided.
 You must submit your posters/flyers at the same time you submit the two research topics
on Blackboard. Label each poster/flyer clearly so your name can be identified by the
educator.
o E.g. CHCPOL003 Surname_Poster1
 Word count: no more than 2,000 words per assignment.
 Read topic 1 at the end of the first class.
 You will be assessed individually, for your submission of the topic. Each student to submit
their assessment via Blackboard.
 Do not wait until the last minute to complete the assessment as this is a time-consuming
assessment – you should start as early as possible.
 You may use the PowerPoints for this unit and the learning activities to help you complete
the assessment.
 You are required to communicate verbally and/or in writing with your educator
throughout the assessment to ensure you understand the process and to clarify any areas
of uncertainty.
 You are required to apply your Professional Standards of Practice throughout the
assessment, the framework for which included:
o NMBA Enrolled Nurse Standards for Practice
o NMBA Code of Ethics for Nurses
o NMBA Code of Professional Conduct for nurses
o Health Practitioner Regulation National Law Act (National Law)
o Scope of Nursing Practice Decision Making Framework
 You are also required to apply an appropriate research approach to nursing practice within
the scope of the Enrolled Nurse and use nursing research methodologies and resources
appropriately.
 You will need to provide the exact number of words used at the end of the proposal.
o Word count does NOT include: The pre-existing templates, instructions and
questions.
 You must use analytical processes throughout the assessment including: comparing,
contrasting, challenging and reflecting.

Research Topic 1
Prevention and early treatment for Influenza [flu]
Topic 1 – Background
Read before starting your assignment
You are a new enrolled nurse working in a clinic located in a remote area. The clinic building is an older
structure and lacks the use of clinical and client information, such as posters. It has been identified that many
of the staff are efficient in their roles but have some out-of-date ideas in their nursing practice.
The clinic manager has asked you to research the most current information about a specific topic, such as:
Prevention and early treatment for Influenza [flu]
Plan the research activity
1. In order to complete this assessment, you need to identify TWO (2) areas related to the topic,
where research can help support and improve your own practice as an EN.
Every nurse has the duty to cure the patients from different diseases. The disease influenza or
flu is a respiratory illness and is highly contagious (Appiah et al., 2016). This disease spreads
from one person to another through the coughs and sneezes. (D’Mello et al., 2015). A person if
touch an influenza infected person, the infection spreads, for example shaking of hands. The
two areas related to the topic which can help the nurse and improve the practice as a
registered nurse are the ‘prevention’ and ‘treatment’ of the disease
2. Identify the reason(s) for undertaking your research from the list below.
This research study has been conducted for strengthening or improving the quality of my practice and
also for the reason of increasing my knowledge. By doing this research work, my knowledge about the
different methods of preventing the disease pneumonia has increased (Appiah et al., 2015). Normally
people become unaware regarding very small things which they do not even know can affect the well-
being of people. So if people become aware about the different causes, prevention and also the early
treatment of a disease, then a healthy state of life can be maintained (Havers et al., 2015). People do

not need to visit to the doctors in the early stages of the disease, they can treat the disease by taking
medicines prepared from medicinal plants at home. (Tapia et al., 2016).
3. Write a clear statement highlighting your research question or hypothesis, e.g. “Is there a
difference between hand washing protocols and actual practice”.
My research hypothesis is the ‘different prevention methods and early treatment of influenza (flu). The
nursing interventions obviously are applicable to this topic. The nursing interventions includes the care plan
prepared by the nurse for the cure of the disease. For curing the patients suffering from pneumonia, this
research study will help me a lot. This study will help me a lot in knowing about the different scientific terms
associated with the disease pneumonia. The infrastructure of the hospital where I am working at present is
not good, the hygiene is not maintained at all times which hampers the nurses rom preventing the
reoccurrences of the diseases. So I can apply the knowledge I am gaining through this research in the
hospitals and also in the different residential areas so that pneumonia can be prevented and also people can
take care of themselves at the early stages of the disease.
4. Establish and define the general research objective.
The research objectives are – (a) To know about the different prevention methods of the disease
pneumonia (b) To know about the different early curing methods of pneumonia. (c) To find about the
patients reaction to the prevention methods of pneumonia and also the reaction to the early treatment of
influenza. (d) Whether people can cure themselves at home during the early stages of the disease.
5. Identify ONE (1) other discipline that could be connected to this research activity.
The other discipline which is very much connected to this research activity is the scientific research
purposes. So many research work are already there regarding the prevention of influenza but
researches are still going on regarding the early treatments of influenza. Researchers are very much
interested in this disease as worldwide many people are suffering from pneumonia. Even in serious

cases, a patient may die because of this disease. (Oboho et al., 2016). After considering all these
circumstances, the researchers are doing researchers are doing continuous researches on different
medicinal herbs so that new medicines can be invented for curing this disease (Bale, 2015). The
researchers are doing researches on how the food habits of normal people can be changed so that
the human body can fight against the infections and cannot acquire the disease (Sandhu, Gill & Sood,
2016).
6. In order to gather information about the research topic, you will need to access credible
sources of data and evidence.
For gathering information about the topic, the two research areas from where the information was
collected are PubMed and CINAHL.
HINT: This is a good time to contact your educator and discuss your research topic and verbally
gain confirmation that you and your partner are still on track.
Gather information for your research
7. Evaluate and select a maximum of two (2) methods of gathering information you think would
be most appropriate to answer your research question.
The two ways of gathering detail information about any research topic are by searching the research
topic by using the key words of the topic and the other method by doing different surveys (Davlin,
2016). Arranging surveys for the purpose of collecting information is a much better approach of
information collection than by searching the topic by using the key words. Surveys provide the
researches with accurate information as it involves original information about the people. The surveys
serve as the primary data collected directly from the people while by searching through the key words
provide the researchers with the information only related with those words. Searching by using key
words serves as the secondary method of collecting data as the data are not directly available (Baden
et al., 2016).

8. You are now to gather information for your research topic using a systematic approach.
Statement of objective – The objective of this research study was to determine about the different
preventive measures and also about the early treatment methods of the worldwide occurring disease
pneumonia.
Data collection- The data was collected by searching about the topic ‘prevention and early treatment
of influenza’. The research was done by using the key words like prevention of pneumonia, treatment,
early stage pneumonia (Blanton et al., 2017). Many research papers were found, the relevant papers
were identified and the important information was noted down.
Data evaluation- Many papers were found after searching through the key words but only the
relevant papers were selected. I have used a tool for including and excluding the relevant papers is JBI
http://joannabriggs.org/research/critical-appraisal-tools.html
Analysis – The papers that were found were properly analysed by comparing and contrasting.
So many papers were there having the same type of information but only the papers were selected
whose information were found relevant to the research topic. The papers whose information were not
appropriate were discarded.
Presentation of the findings- The papers which are used for doing this research work are –
Article 1 - Mousa, H. A. L. (2017). Prevention and treatment of influenza, influenza-like illness, and common
cold by herbal, complementary, and natural therapies. Journal of evidence-based complementary &
alternative medicine, 22(1), 166-174 (it is a systematic study).
Article 2 - Flannery, B., Chung, J. R., Thaker, S. N., Monto, A. S., Martin, E. T., Belongia, E. A., ... & Nowalk, M.
P. (2017). Interim estimates of 2016–17 seasonal influenza vaccine effectiveness—United States, February
2017. MMWR. Morbidity and mortality weekly report, 66(6), 167. ( it is a cohort study).
Article 3 - Flannery, B., Clippard, J., Zimmerman, R. K., Nowalk, M. P., Jackson, M. L., Jackson, L. A., ... &
Gaglani, M. (2015). Early estimates of seasonal influenza vaccine effectiveness—United States, January
2015. MMWR. Morbidity and mortality weekly report, 64(1), 10 ( it is a cohort study).
Article 4 -Goeijenbier, M., van Genderen, P., Ward, B. J., Wilder-Smith, A., Steffen, R., & Osterhaus, A. D. M. E.
(2016). Travellers and influenza: risks and prevention. Journal of travel medicine, 24(1), taw078 ( it is a
systematic study).
9. Distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information.
Article 1 (Mousa, H. A. L. (2017). Prevention and treatment of influenza, influenza-like illness, and common
cold by herbal, complementary, and natural therapies. Journal of evidence-based complementary &
alternative medicine, 22(1), 166-174) is the most relevant to my research topic. This is because in this paper,

the prevention methods and early treatment of pneumonia has been discussed.
10. In order to facilitate your analysis, organise the information you have found.
In order to make the analysis easier, the articles according to their relevance to topic are –
Article 1 - Mousa, H. A. L. (2017). Prevention and treatment of influenza, influenza-like illness, and common
cold by herbal, complementary, and natural therapies. Journal of evidence-based complementary &
alternative medicine, 22(1), 166-174.
Article 2 - Flannery, B., Chung, J. R., Thaker, S. N., Monto, A. S., Martin, E. T., Belongia, E. A., ... & Nowalk, M.
P. (2017). Interim estimates of 2016–17 seasonal influenza vaccine effectiveness—United States, February
2017. MMWR. Morbidity and mortality weekly report, 66(6), 167.
Article 3 - Flannery, B., Clippard, J., Zimmerman, R. K., Nowalk, M. P., Jackson, M. L., Jackson, L. A., ... &
Gaglani, M. (2015). Early estimates of seasonal influenza vaccine effectiveness—United States, January
2015. MMWR. Morbidity and mortality weekly report, 64(1), 10.
Article 4 -Goeijenbier, M., van Genderen, P., Ward, B. J., Wilder-Smith, A., Steffen, R., & Osterhaus, A. D. M. E.
(2016). Travellers and influenza: risks and prevention. Journal of travel medicine, 24(1), taw078.
HINT: Contact your educator and discuss your research topic and verbally gain confirmation
that you and your partner are still on track.
Analyse the information
11. Prioritise information based on the research objective
The articles 1 and 2 will help in doing the rest of the assignment.
12. Compare and contrast your two (2) sources of information.
The table is given in the appendices, after the reference is given
13. You have now thoroughly analysed the information available to you. Now draw conclusions
based on your findings.
After doing proper analysis of the articles it is seen that if people follow the preventive measures then
infection from influenza will not happen and if in case the early symptoms of the disease are seen then
proper medication can cure the disease and prevent from exacerbation. All these things are
experimentally proved in the articles.
14. As your findings may be used to establish evidence-based practice, identify one (1) impact your
conclusions may have, in terms of duty of care requirements.

The nurses must follow the preventive measures properly and also spread about the awareness
programme to nearby and residential areas (Chaves et al., 2015). The nurse must spread about the
knowledge the early treatment of pneumonia.
HINT: Contact your educator and discuss your research topic and verbally gain confirmation that
you and your partner are still on track.
Use information in practice
15. Assess one (1) way in which different aspects of information may be used in your workplace.
In my workplace different aspects of information can be implemented by preparing proper laws and the
hospital management should implement such laws.
16. Using and reflecting on what you have learnt from your research
In my current workplace the thing which need to be changed is the hygienic practices. The hospital
authority does not maintain properly the hygiene as the other hospitals maintain.
17. Identify issues that require further research and evaluation.
There are still issue which require much research and information is that the medicinal plants that can be
used for the early treatment are not available in all countries and the medicines are still not yet
discovered, so it is better if the researchers discover other medicinal herbs available in most of the
countries.
18. Using one piece of A4 paper or PowerPoint (1 slide) (portrait format), develop a poster or a flyer
to address outcomes of research, i.e. select a method to disseminate your findings. You will be
required to scan it and upload it on Blackboard with this assignment.
A poster is added with this file
HINT: Contact your educator and discuss your actions verbally gain confirmation that
you and your partner are still on track.
WORD COUNT: ________

Reference
Appiah, G. D., Blanton, L., D’Mello, T., Kniss, K., Smith, S., Mustaquim, D., ... & Bresee, J. (2015).
Influenza activity—United States, 2014–15 season and composition of the 2015–16 influenza
vaccine. MMWR. Morbidity and mortality weekly report, 64(21), 583.
Appiah, G. D., Chaves, S. S., Kirley, P. D., Miller, L., Meek, J., Anderson, E., ... & Bargsten, M. (2016).
Increased antiviral treatment among hospitalized children and adults with laboratory-
confirmed influenza, 2010-2015. Clinical Infectious Diseases, ciw745.
Baden, L. R., Swaminathan, S., Angarone, M., Blouin, G., Camins, B. C., Casper, C., ... & Greene, J. N.
(2016). Prevention and treatment of cancer-related infections, Version 2.2016, NCCN Clinical
Practice Guidelines in Oncology. Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer
Network, 14(7), 882-913.
Bale Jr, J. F. (2015). Virus and immune-mediated encephalitides: epidemiology, diagnosis, treatment,
and prevention. Pediatric neurology, 53(1), 3-12.
Blanton, L., Alabi, N., Mustaquim, D., Taylor, C., Kniss, K., Kramer, N., ... & Flannery, B. (2017).
Update: influenza activity in the United States during the 2016–17 season and composition
of the 2017–18 influenza vaccine. MMWR. Morbidity and mortality weekly report, 66(25),
668.
Chaves, S. S., Pérez, A., Miller, L., Bennett, N. M., Bandyopadhyay, A., Farley, M. M., ... & Ryan, P.
(2015). Impact of prompt influenza antiviral treatment on extended care needs after
influenza hospitalization among community-dwelling older adults. Clinical Infectious
Diseases, 61(12), 1807-1814.
D’Mello, T., Brammer, L., Blanton, L., Kniss, K., Smith, S., Mustaquim, D., ... & Finelli, L. (2015).
Update: influenza activity—United States, September 28, 2014–February 21, 2015. MMWR.
Morbidity and mortality weekly report, 64(8), 206.
Davlin, S. L. (2016). Influenza activity—United States, 2015–16 season and composition of the 2016–
17 influenza vaccine. MMWR. Morbidity and mortality weekly report, 65.
Flannery, B., Chung, J. R., Thaker, S. N., Monto, A. S., Martin, E. T., Belongia, E. A., ... & Nowalk, M. P.
(2017). Interim estimates of 2016–17 seasonal influenza vaccine effectiveness—United
States, February 2017. MMWR. Morbidity and mortality weekly report, 66(6), 167.
Flannery, B., Clippard, J., Zimmerman, R. K., Nowalk, M. P., Jackson, M. L., Jackson, L. A., ... &
Gaglani, M. (2015). Early estimates of seasonal influenza vaccine effectiveness—United
States, January 2015. MMWR. Morbidity and mortality weekly report, 64(1), 10.
Goeijenbier, M., van Genderen, P., Ward, B. J., Wilder-Smith, A., Steffen, R., & Osterhaus, A. D. M. E.
(2016). Travellers and influenza: risks and prevention. Journal of travel medicine, 24(1),
taw078

Havers, F., Flannery, B., Clippard, J. R., Gaglani, M., Zimmerman, R. K., Jackson, L. A., ... & Monto, A.
S. (2015). Use of influenza antiviral medications among outpatients at high risk for influenza-
associated complications during the 2013–2014 influenza season. Clinical Infectious
Diseases, 60(11), 1677-1680.
Mousa, H. A. L. (2017). Prevention and treatment of influenza, influenza-like illness, and common
cold by herbal, complementary, and natural therapies. Journal of evidence-based
complementary & alternative medicine, 22(1), 166-174.
Oboho, I. K., Reed, C., Gargiullo, P., Leon, M., Aragon, D., Meek, J., ... & Bargsten, M. (2016). Benefit
of early initiation of influenza antiviral treatment to pregnant women hospitalized with
laboratory-confirmed influenza. The Journal of infectious diseases, 214(4), 507-515.
Sandhu, R., Gill, H. K., & Sood, S. K. (2016). Smart monitoring and controlling of Pandemic Influenza A
(H1N1) using Social Network Analysis and cloud computing. Journal of Computational
Science, 12, 11-22.
Tapia, M. D., Sow, S. O., Tamboura, B., Tégueté, I., Pasetti, M. F., Kodio, M., ... & Traoré, A. (2016).
Maternal immunisation with trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine for prevention of
influenza in infants in Mali: a prospective, active-controlled, observer-blind, randomised
phase 4 trial. The Lancet infectious diseases, 16(9), 1026-1035.
Article 1 – APA style referencing Article 2 - APA style referencing
Currency 2017
Mousa, H. A. L. (2017). Prevention and
treatment of influenza, influenza-like
illness, and common cold by herbal,
complementary, and natural
therapies. Journal of evidence-based
complementary & alternative
medicine, 22(1), 166-174.
2017
- Flannery, B., Chung, J. R., Thaker, S. N.,
Monto, A. S., Martin, E. T., Belongia, E. A., ...
& Nowalk, M. P. (2017). Interim estimates of
2016–17 seasonal influenza vaccine
effectiveness—United States, February
2017. MMWR. Morbidity and mortality
weekly report, 66(6), 167.
Study
findings
The study findings is prevention and
early treatment of influenza or flu.
The study findings is prevention and early
treatment of influenza or fly
Strength
of study
Rules of evidence – This article is a
systematic review, so it is in the
topmost level of the pyramid of
evidence.
Rules of evidence- This article is a cohort
study, so it is in the lower level of pyramid of
evidence.
Relevanc
e to
Yes, the information that is provided
in this article is very much relevant to
the research topic of the assignment.
Yes, the information that is provided in this
article is very much relevant to the research
topic of the assignment. This paper deal

objective with the effectiveness of vaccines against
patients suffering from pneumonia including
children and adult.
Reliabilit
y
On doing repeated trials the study can
give much better result. This article is
a systematic review journal, so if more
researches are done then much better
result can be obtained.
On doing repeated trials the study may not
give better results because this article has
done the experiment by arranging cohort
studies.
Validity The internal validity revels that no
flaw is there in this study. No bias is
present regarding the collection of the
samples or at the time of doing the
analyses. The key words that were
used at the time of searching are
”influenza, cold, influenza herbal
therapy, common cold herbal therapy,
dietary supplements for upper
respiratory tract infection, alkaline
earthing, alkaline diet, earthing,
grounding”.
The external validity of this paper is
very high. In this paper, the name of
different medicinal plants is given so
these plants can be used by patients
suffering from the disease and in
future some medicines can be
produced from these plants.
Assess how sound the research is.
Some flaws are there in this study, firstly,
the vaccination status included self-reports
at four or five sites, secondly the information
from the records of the medical and the
immunization registries are needed for the
evaluation of vaccine effectiveness of the
type of the vaccines.
The external validity of this paper is very
high. In this paper the effectiveness of
vaccines against the disease influenza has
been described against the age groups of
children below six month of age and adults.
Benefits The information that are gained from
this paper is very beneficial. Firstly, the
names of different medicinal herbs
can be identified from which in future
medicine can be prepared. Not only
about the medicinal herbs, in the
paper the name of the metal from
which future medicines can be
prepared, are also mentioned. The
usefulness of probiotics is also
mentioned in the paper. Probiotics
help in preventing the disease
pneumonia.
The information that are gained from this
paper is very useful and beneficial as it deals
with the prevention of pneumonia by
providing vaccines at early childhood.
Risks The only risk which is associated with No such risks has been found in this paper

the information is that not all people
are susceptible to all medicines, plant
extracts. So if the plant extract is given
to a person suffering from pneumonia
without knowing that the person has
allergy against the plant extract, then
the person may fall ill again showing
other side effects.
except the risks of creating bias with the
results of the experiment as the experiment
is a cohort study.
Feasibilit
y
associate
d with
informati
on
Application of the information
collected from this paper is not so easy
to apply in my workplace. At first I
have to inform the management of
the hospital to prepare law regarding
the prevention and early treatment of
influenza and then implement the law.
In my workplace information can be spread
by telling the management of the hospital to
create new law regarding the
implementation of the new vaccines.
Conclusio
ns
From these two articles it can be concluded that if proper prevention is taken, then
people will not be effected from pneumonia and if early treatment against influenza is
taken then the exacerbation of the disease can also be prevented.