Critical Appraisal Guidelines for Single Case Study Research

The use of critical appraisal guidelines to assess the validity of research findings has become an established technique in those disciplines, such as healthcare and medicine, that encourage the use of evidence-based practice. Critical appraisal guidelines provide a rigorous set of criteria, often in the form of a checklist, against which a piece of research can be assessed. Although well established criteria exist for many forms of quantitative research, such as clinical trials and cohort studies, qualitative research is less well served. Through a synthesis of existing best practices in interpretative research this paper provides comprehensive guidelines for the conduct of single case study research and extrapolates from them a set of critical appraisal guidelines to assist in the evaluation of such work

Can shared decision making reduce medical malpractice litigation? : A systematic review

© 2015 Durand et al.; licensee BioMed Central. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise statedTo explore the likely influence and impact of shared decision-making on medical malpractice litigation and patients’ intentions to initiate litigation. We included all observational, interventional and qualitative studies published in all languages, which assessed the effect or likely influence of shared decision-making or shared decision-making interventions on medical malpractice litigation or on patients’ intentions to litigate. The following databases were searched from inception until January 2014: CINAHL, Cochrane Register of Controlled Trials, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, EMBASE, HMIC, Lexis library, MEDLINE, NHS Economic Evaluation Database, Open SIGLE, PsycINFO and Web of Knowledge. We also hand searched reference lists of included studies and contacted experts in the field. Downs & Black quality assessment checklist, the Critical Appraisal Skill Programme qualitative tool, and the Critical Appraisal Guidelines for single case study research were used to assess the quality of included studiePeer reviewedFinal Published versio

Semantic integrity in data warehousing : a framework for understanding : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Business Studies in Information Systems at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Data modelling has gathered an increasing amount of attention by data warehouse developers as they come to realise that important implementation decisions such as data integrity, performance and meta data management, depend on the quality of the underlying data model. Not all organisations model their data but where they do, Entity-Relationship (E-R) modelling, or more correctly relational modelling, has been widely used. An alternative, dimensional modelling, has been gaining acceptance in recent years and adopted by many practitioners. Consequently, there is much debate over which form of modelling is the most appropriate and effective. However, the dimensional model is in fact based on the relational model and the two models are not so different that a debate is necessary. Perhaps, the real focus should be on how to abstract meaning out of the data model. This research explores the importance of semantic integrity during data warehouse design and its impact on the successful use of the implemented warehouse. This has been achieved through a detailed case study. Consequently, a conceptual framework for describing semantic integrity has been developed. The purpose of the framework is to provide a theoretical basis for explaining how a data model is interpreted through the meaning levels of understanding, connotation and generation, and also how a data model is created from an existing meaning structure by intention, generation and action. The result of this exploration is the recognition that the implementation of a data warehouse may not assist with providing a detailed understanding of the semantic content of a data warehouse

EVIDENCE-BASED INFORMATION SYSTEMS: A DECADE LATER

The “evidence-based practice” paradigm was proposed to IS researchers a decade ago. Since then evidence-based practice has become established across a range of disciplines, but it has received relatively little attention in IS. This paper explains the idea of evidence-based practice and reviews the related work found in the IS research literature. Some possible reasons for the lack of widespread adoption in IS are suggested. Systematic literature reviews (SLRs), a key research method in evidence-based practice, are explained. Recent developments in SLRs are discussed, which enable a richer and more nuanced approach to understanding information systems than found in conventional SLRs. It is proposed that these developments now make SLRs more suitable for synthesising empirical studies in IS. Greater use of SLRs by IS researchers would enable us to develop a cumulative knowledgebase of use to both researchers and practitioners

Art therapy for people with psychosis:a narrative review of the literature

Art therapy enables individuals to use art to creatively express themselves and communicate differently with themselves, others, and their reality. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidelines for psychosis and schizophrenia suggest that arts therapies, which include art therapy, are considered to improve negative symptoms of psychosis. We examined the effectiveness of art therapy for people with psychosis and explored whether art therapy is a meaningful and acceptable intervention in this Review. Seven electronic databases were searched for empirical papers that concerned the use of art therapy for adults with psychosis that were published from 2007 onwards. The search identified 18 papers. High-quality quantitative articles provided inconclusive evidence for the effectiveness of art therapy in adults with psychosis. However, high-quality qualitative articles indicated that therapists and clients considered art therapy to be a beneficial, meaningful, and acceptable intervention, although this conclusion was based on a small number of studies. In this Review, we discuss the theoretical, clinical, and methodological issues in light of the development of more robust research, which is needed to corroborate individuals' experiences and guide evidence-based practice

What is the impact on health and wellbeing of interventions that foster respect and social inclusion in community-residing older adults? A systematic review of quantitative and qualitative studies

Abstract Background Many interventions have been developed to promote respect and social inclusion among older people, but the evidence on their impacts on health has not been synthesised. This systematic review aims to appraise the state of the evidence across the quantitative and qualitative literature. Methods Eligible studies published between 1990 and 2015 were identified by scanning seven bibliographic databases using a pre-piloted strategy, searching grey literature and contacting experts. Studies were included if they assessed the impact (quantitatively) and/or perceived impact (qualitatively) of an intervention promoting respect and social inclusion on the physical or mental health of community-residing people aged 60 years and older. Titles and abstracts were screened for eligibility by one reviewer. A second reviewer independently screened a 10% random sample. Full texts were screened for eligibility by one reviewer, with verification by another reviewer. Risk of bias was assessed using standardised tools. Findings were summarised using narrative synthesis, harvest plots and logic models to depict the potential pathways to health outcomes. Results Of the 27,354 records retrieved, 40 studies (23 quantitative, 6 qualitative, 11 mixed methods) were included. All studies were conducted in high and upper middle-income countries. Interventions involved mentoring, intergenerational and multi-activity programmes, dancing, music and singing, art and culture and information-communication technology. Most studies (n = 24) were at high or moderate risk of bias. Music and singing, intergenerational interventions, art and culture and multi-activity interventions were associated with an overall positive impact on health outcomes. This included depression (n = 3), wellbeing (n = 3), subjective health (n = 2), quality of life (n = 2), perceived stress and mental health (n = 2) and physical health (n = 2). Qualitative studies offered explanations for mediating factors (e.g. improved self-esteem) that may lead to improved health outcomes and contributed to the assessment of causation. Conclusions Whilst this review suggests that some interventions may positively impact on the health outcomes of older people, and identified mediating factors to health outcomes, the evidence is based on studies with heterogeneous methodologies. Many of the interventions were delivered as projects to selected groups, raising important questions about the feasibility of wider implementation and the potential for population-wide benefits. Systematic review registration PROSPERO registration number CRD4201401010

A avaliação de sistemas e tecnologias de informação : estudo de implementação de um ERP no sector público

Mestrado em Contabilidade, Fiscalidade e Finanças EmpresariaisUm efeito aliado à tendência da implementação massiva de SI/TI nas organizações será o desenvolvimento de métodos que procuram avaliar os investimentos neste campo, numa tentativa de ajudar a identificar o valor transferido, bem como servir de meio para a justificação de se continuar a investir em projectos desta natureza. No entanto, a dificuldade em aplicar métodos económico-financeiros na determinação dos benefícios, especialmente dos benefícios intangíveis, impossibilita quantificar, mensurar ou até mesmo identificar os eventuais benefícios resultantes do desenvolvimento de projectos de SI/TI. Neste sentido surgiram, nas últimas décadas, métodos que procuram auxiliar os gestores na tarefa de garantir que os benefícios associados aos investimentos em SI/TI são de facto alcançados. Após a adopção em massa, pelas organizações do sector privado, de sistemas de informação empresariais, as organizações do sector público também começaram a adoptar estes tipos de SI, como é o exemplo dos sistemas ERP. Apesar da garantia de sucesso e vantagens da aplicabilidade destes pacotes de sistemas empresariais, muitas organizações, quer do sector público, quer do sector privado, depararam-se com enormes problemas e dificuldades com a sua implementação. Assim, no sentido de evitar os condicionalismos referidos com a implementação de SI/TI, como é o caso dos sistemas ERP, é sugerido um método de avaliação de SI/TI, nomeadamente o de gestão de benefícios, a uma organização do sector público, com o intuito de reflectir sobre uma eventual aplicação deste processo.Due to the massive implementation of IS/IT in organizations, methods that seek to evaluate the investments in this area have been developed, in an attempt to identify the benefits, as well as to justify the follow-up in investing in projects of this nature. However, applying economic and financial methods in benefits assessment has been hard, especially with intangible ones, which seem hard to quantify, to measure or even to identify. Thus, in recent decades approaches have emerged in an attempt to assist managers in ensuring that the benefits, associated with investments in IS/IT, are actually realized. After the mass adoption of enterprise systems by private sector organizations, the public sector has also begun implementing these types of IS, like ERP systems. Despite the promise of success, advantages and the applicability of these enterprise systems solutions, many organizations, whether from the public or private sector, have faced enormous problems and difficulties with its implementation. Therefore, in order to avoid the problems with IS/IT implementation, a method of evaluation and managing benefits has been suggested to a specific public sector organization, in order to stress the possible application of this process