In this assignment I intend to critically evaluate a paper by Elkington et al. (2004) from the journal, Respiratory Medicine. This article is titled, ‘The last year of life of COPD: A qualitative study of symptoms and services.’ Before critiquing this paper I will discuss my rationale for choosing it. I will also discuss the critiquing process and why these skills are important to nurses. My assignment will conclude by discussing why Elkington et al.’s (2004) paper is relevant and the implications it has to adult nursing.

The main reason I picked this paper is because I have had a lot of experience caring for patients with COPD on placement. COPD is the abbreviation for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. COPD is a group of respiratory diseases where airway resistance is increased with impaired airflow, e.g. chronic bronchitis and pulmonary emphysema (Mullally 2002). Research based on this disease is very relevant to future practice as the incidence of COPD is on the rise. By 2020, COPD is expected to be the third most common cause of death worldwide (Murray and Lopez, 1997). Nurses need to be made more aware of this illness and its effect on patients and their carers as the rate of hospital admissions due to COPD is very high. COPD continues to be responsible for over 90,000 hospital admissions a year which, with an average duration of stay of 11 days, means nearly a million hospital bed days per year (Lung and Asthma Information Agency 2003).

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I also decided to choose this paper as it is a qualitative study. Qualitative methods lend themselves to questions that seek answers from feelings, experiences and attitudes, while quantitative approaches necessitate answers that can be found in numbers or categories, subject to precise measurement and statistical analysis (Paniagua 2002). Qualitative research is more relevant to nursing as it helps the researcher to interact with the individual (s) involved in the study. Therefore the researcher can build up a rapport with their participant (s) and gain a greater insight into how they feel. This methodology has a holistic focus, which ...

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