Mental health impact on healthcare workers due to the COVID-19 pandemic

The article I selected is titled “Mental health impact on healthcare workers due to the COVID-19 pandemic: a U.S. cross-sectional survey study” by Biber et al. (2022). The article presents a study conducted to investigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of healthcare workers. I found this article interesting since the pandemic has been one of the most challenging episodes in our recent times as far as healthcare practice is concerned. According to the findings of this study, anxiety, depression, and insomnia were among the commonly reported psychological health issues that affected healthcare workers as a result of the pandemic. In addition, the article underscores the importance of offering informed and evidence-based interventions to address the mental health dimension of healthcare workers not only due to the pandemic but also due to exposure to other stressful practice circumstances.

Database:

The database used for this search is PubMed. Thanks to the Walden Library that offered a gateway to multiple databases, I was able to access PubMed. Nevertheless, I encountered some challenges and one of them relates to the multiplicity of articles that came with the first search using the keywords I had in mind. Nevertheless, this became easy after I found out and understood the use of filters based on the date of publication. As such, I was able to confine the search within the last five years. Other than that, I did not experience any other challenge.

I would recommend this database to my colleagues since it comes with several benefits. For instance, the database has millions of articles that are relevant to nursing and the larger healthcare discipline (Gusenbauer & Haddaway, 2020). In addition, it has inbuilt filters based on the year of publication, article attributes, and full text articles. With the use of these filters, one can easily narrow their search and achieve a high level of specificity. Moreover, one can use advanced search options as well as the Medical Subject Headings/MeSH option to achieve greater levels of specificity (Gusenbauer & Haddaway, 2020). Last but not least, it is easy to navigate the database.

Discussion number 2

For this week’s discussion I chose to focus on a subject I have become increasingly enamored with as I work towards gaining my nurse practitioner degree: the use of nurse practitioners in the emergency department.  As Veenama et al. (2021) mentioned and I have also seen throughout my career, traditionally, the emergency department was the domain of physician assistants and not nurse practitioners, but recently, there has been a large uptick in the number of nurse practitioners becoming employed across the country.  This has led to a broader debate on whether nurse practitioners have the proper training to work in such an environment as it has such a large scope of practice, and there are almost no formal training programs specific to the emergency department for nurse practitioners (Veenema et al., 2021).  The study largely concluded that there is insufficient data to determine the quality and effectiveness of nurse practitioners in the emergency department and that this topic needs to be researched further (Veenema et al., 2021). 

I chose to use the CINAHL Plus with Full Text database to find my article.  I have used this database in the past and found it easy to use yet comprehensive enough to produce quality results.  The biggest difficulty I had when finding this article was identifying the right search queries, a skill I will need to continue to hone throughout my academic career.  I also had some difficulty finding relevant data, a skill described well by Al-Jundi and Sakka (2017) when they discussed the importance of developing critical appraisal techniques to identify articles that are relevant and meaningful to my subject. 

Overall, this database is very useful to my nursing colleagues, and I highly recommend it for several reasons.  Firstly, the database provides a quick view of exactly what type of article is presented in the results.  Distinguishing between peer-reviewed journal articles, meta-analyses, and editorials is essential when conducting a good literature search, especially when most scholarly articles require scholarly peer-reviewed material to source from (Al-Jundi & Sakka, 2017; Shellenbarger, 2016).  Secondly, the sheer volume of articles within the database allows writers to get the full breadth of data needed in order to truly synthesize data on their subject matter (Shellenbarger, 2016).  Finally, I’m very impressed with the database’s user interface.  The search function is highly customizable yet still easy to use, the articles presented in a query are well organized, and there are many different tools available in the database that are clearly designed to let scholars using the database focus on getting the relevant information they need quickly and efficiently.