Research forms an integral part of nursing and patient care. Through research, it is possible to come up with appropriate nursing interventions focused on improving patient outcomes. While both qualitative and quantitative research approaches are key to supporting nursing practice. Each has distinct roles to play. Therefore, the purpose of this assignment is to explore the type of quality research approach which can be used to address a chosen nursing practice issue.
The Selected Issue
The selected issue is opioid addiction. The increasing number of opioid abuse cases among millennials is an issue that has attracted the attention of the US government and other non-governmental agencies. These effects have resulted in teaming up of the communities, government agencies, and healthcare systems to reverse the epidemic of opioid overdose and address the opioid crisis (Khan & Mehan, 2021). Directing all resources into treating opioid addiction has been futile as the cases are sore daily. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop preventive measures to address the issues. As a result, the qualitative research approach to the topic has been giving essential insights that would assist in finding data that can lead to the practical solution to the problem among opioid addicts (Chandler et al., 2020).
Qualitative Research Design Approach
Qualitative research is important in educational research because it addresses the question of “how.” Again, it enables the researcher to develop a deeper understanding of content, phenomena, and experiences. The design allows the researcher to gather rich information from the responses on their lived experiences on the topic of study (Hustad et al., 2019). The design relies on the information provided by the informants as they would describe their feeling and understanding of the topic under investigation.
A focus group is a qualitative research approach with a maximum of eight respondents who converge in a room to discuss an issue. The groups aim to discover different attitudes, responses, and experiences about opioid addiction. One of the main roles of the group is to address various survey questions and share their opinions on effective ways of addressing the problem (Baillie, 2019). The deep insights provided by the participants through their body language also play an important role in examining the problem. These groups act as a rich source of information based on their experience, their current feelings, and what they might be undergoing concerning opioid abuse.
Justification
Focus group discussion would effectively analyze opioid abuse among the selected group. The selected approach of the focus group consists of participants with similar traits. Again, they have experience with the topic. The group encourages each participant to talk and discuss the topic effectively (Doyle et al., 2020). The evaluation of the participants’ interaction is effective in a group setting compared to the traditional one-on-one interview with the participants. Applying the focus group design in collecting data on opioid addiction would give more detailed and complex responses that researchers cannot achieve through the traditional interview method.
On the other hand, focus group design allows participants to form a team that thrives on effectively sharing information and experiences that might be missed using a different design. This approach allows any nurse researcher to examine the respondents’ feelings and the journey many patients face when dealing with opioid addiction. Besides, the focus groups would also aid the researcher in collecting data on the current behaviors of millennials that might have been leading to more cases of opioid abuse (Baillie, 2019). The data collected from this design would be important in developing a practice nurses could adopt to examine their opioid addicts.
Importance to DNP-nurse
DNP nurses need to understand the qualitative research approach for nursing practice as it forms one of the reaches sources of health information in health care. The information provided by the participants in a discussion allows the nurses to understand the participants’ perception of the topic and examine various causes of the issue discussed (Hustad et al., 2019). The need for improvement and practices to solve a nursing problem stems from the quality of data collected from the respondents.
Conclusion
Understanding the feelings and attitudes of respondents on a healthcare problem is effective through the focus group design. This qualitative research approach effectively gains the correct data on the topic. The focus groups allow the researchers to analyze each participant’s attitude toward the problem. Therefore, focus group discussion
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