Abstract
Healthcare workers should uphold cleanliness in the course of their work. Currently, artificial fingernails amongst healthcare workers are restricted in certain settings. The authors of this article carried out research work to determine the premise of this requirement. The article meets the criteria outlined for a scientific paper. This paper analyzes the article Pathogenic organisms associated with artificial fingernails worn by healthcare workers.
Research critique
The article being critiqued is titled Pathogenic organisms associated with artificial fingernails worn by healthcare workers by Sara Hedderwick, Shelly McNeil, Michael Lyons, and Carol Kauffman. This paper analyzes the article’s significance to the nursing practice, statement of the problem, research question and hypothesis, and literature review. All the aforementioned areas meet the criteria for scientific research work. The article is significant to the nursing practice as it justifies the contemporary requirements that restrict artificial fingernails amongst workers in selected healthcare settings.
The statement of purpose is clearly stated, and this element is one of the strengths of the article. The statement of purpose is, “To determine differences in the identity and quantity of microbial flora from healthcare workers (HCWs) wearing artificial nails compared with control HCWs with native nails” (Hedderwick, McNeil, Lyons & Kauffman, 2000, p. 505). According to Ballenger (2014), every scientific research work must have a clearly stated purpose or objective. This aspect gives researchers purpose and goals to achieve. A research paper without well-defined objectives cannot give convincing results. In addition, the authors of an article without a well-defined purpose cannot say confidently that they have achieved their objectives. Clearly stated statements of purpose acts like goalposts for any research work. Therefore, this article meets the set criterion for writing a scientific research paper.
The authors have given a clear hypothesis, which states, “Artificial nails are more likely to harbor pathogens than native nails and that this difference increases over time” (Hedderwick et al. 2000, p. 506). According to “Uniform requirements for manuscripts” (2010), a scientific paper must have a clearly stated hypothesis. In a scientific research work, the hypothesis is closely tied to the purpose because ultimately the researchers have to qualify or nullify it. The hypothesis can be null or alternative (Kumar, 2011). The authors of this article used an alternative hypothesis. In the hypothesis, the authors captured the article’s key agenda, viz. artificial nails are not suitable for healthcare workers in some settings. Stating the hypothesis keeps researchers focused, as they have to stick to it in a bid to qualify or disqualify it at the end based on the obtained results. Therefore, this article meets the required standards for a scientific research paper, which is one of the strengths.
In the article, the authors have utilized numerous scholarly works in the literature review segment. The authors consulted 17 resources in the literature review, which gives the article the needed credibility. However, some of the consulted articles are very old, and thus the available information might be outdated on inapplicable in the contemporary times. Given that the article was published in the year 2000, the authors should have used updated resources probably within 10 years from the year of publication. Out of the 17 sources used, nine are older than 10 years, and only three are less than 5 years old. The use of resources older than 10 years might affect the credibility and reliability of the study in the contemporary times. Old resources can be used especially when giving the background of the topic under study, but the sources should not form the majority of the total references. Therefore, this aspect comes out as one of the article’s weaknesses. However, the three resources falling within 5 years, viz. they were published after 1995, give very vital information on the topic under study.
References
Ballenger, B. (2014). The Curious Researcher: A Guide to Writing Research Papers (8th ed.). London, UK: Longman.
Chiswick, M. (2004). Writing a research paper. Current Pediatrics, 14(6), 513-518.
Hedderwick, S., McNeil, S., Lyons, M., & Kauffman, C. (2000). Pathogenic organisms associated with artificial fingernails worn by healthcare workers. Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, 21(8), 505-509.
Kumar, R. (2011). Research Methodology: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners (3rd ed.). London, UK: Sage.
Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals: Writing and editing for biomedical publication. (2010). Journal of Pharmacology & Pharmacotherapeutics, 1(1), 42–58.