The detailed searching strategies of the integrative review for this study can be found in my last assignment. From the original 2,368 non-duplicate articles selected for review, 18 articles met the inclusion criteria. Six most relevant articles published in recent 15 years (publication date between 2004 and 2018) were chosen for appraising.
This comparative descriptive study aimed to compare residents in hospice …show more content…
Secondary data was used to include 183,742 NH residents in five states (Kansa, Maine, New York, Ohio, South Dakota) who died between 1995 and1997. Eight percent residents were enrolled in hospice while being a NH resident. Twenty-six percent of hospice and 44 percent of nonhospice residents were hospitalized in their last 30 days of life. Hospice was found to have a powerful effect in reducing EOL hospitalization rates. Strengths of the study were the concise summary of the current knowledge in the area of study and clear statement of contributions it would make to the existing literature. The rationales for excluding participants from the study was adequately described. The variables were clearly defined and rationales for the categorizations were clearly described. There was an in-depth description of the analysis process. However, the validity and reliability for the quality of the data sources were not described. The statistics presented in table 1 were confusing. The header of Table 1 was not consistent with the statistics in the …show more content…
Secondary data from five sources were emerged to obtain 288,202 urban Black and White NH residents who had access to HC and died in 2006. Although blacks had an overall lower hospice use rate than Whites, substantial variations in hospice use were found among subgroups of Blacks depending on individual-level factors and NH-level factors. Efforts to reduce racial differences in hospice use should attend to these factors. Strengths of the study were the appropriate use of the ecological framework to guide the development of the conceptual framework of this study and clear description of the hypothesis. The clearly defined variables were identified based on previous researches and were reflective of the concepts identified in the conceptual framework. The selection criteria of the sample were clearly described and justified. The implications for practice were appropriately based on the study findings and the findings from the previous studies. However, the results presented in Figure 1 is confusing. The height of the bar corresponding to the odds ratio (OR) of 2.0 is twice that corresponding to an OR of 0.5 which in fact both OR are of the same magnitude, albeit in opposite directions. Besides, the quality of data was not