| Course | NU 760 Scholarship for Nursing Practice |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 2 |
| Paper type | Documented literature search strategy |
| Length | About 650 words, 5 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Herzing University |
| Program | MSN |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for NU 760 Unit 2
Search Strategy: Purposeful Hourly Rounding and Inpatient Falls in Adult Acute Care
Student Name
Department of Nursing, Herzing University
NU 760: Scholarship for Nursing Practice
Instructor Name
January 28, 2026
Search Strategy: Purposeful Hourly Rounding and Inpatient Falls in Adult Acute Care
Question and Eligibility
Question: In hospitalized adults on medical-surgical units (P), does purposeful hourly rounding by nursing staff (I), compared with usual care without structured rounding (C), reduce the rate of patient falls (O)? Inclusion: studies of adult inpatients on medical, surgical, or medical-surgical units; any design with a comparison, including randomized trials, controlled before-and-after studies, interrupted time series, and systematic reviews; falls reported as a rate or count with a denominator; published in English from 2000 through 2025. Exclusion: pediatric, psychiatric, long-term care, and emergency department settings; rounding by physicians only; reports without outcome data, such as descriptions of implementation alone. The question was framed in PICO form so that each element maps to a block of search terms (Melnyk & Fineout-Overholt, 2023).
Databases and Search Strings
All searches were run on January 14 and 15, 2026. Terms within a concept block were combined with OR, and blocks were combined with AND.
| Database | Rounding block | Falls block | Setting block | Filters | Records |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PubMed (MEDLINE) | "hourly rounding"[tiab] OR "intentional rounding"[tiab] OR "purposeful rounding"[tiab] OR "comfort rounds"[tiab] OR "nursing rounds"[tiab] | "Accidental Falls"[Mesh] OR fall*[tiab] | "Inpatients"[Mesh] OR hospital*[tiab] OR "acute care"[tiab] | English; 2000-2025; adults 19+ | 212 |
| CINAHL Complete | (MH "Nursing Rounds") OR "hourly rounding" OR "intentional rounding" OR "purposeful rounding" | (MH "Accidental Falls") OR fall* | (MH "Inpatients") OR hospital* OR "acute care" | English; 2000-2025; peer reviewed | 268 |
| Cochrane Library | hourly OR intentional OR purposeful NEAR/2 round* | fall* | none added | 2000-2025 | 14 |
| Scopus | TITLE-ABS-KEY("hourly rounding" OR "intentional rounding" OR "purposeful rounding") | TITLE-ABS-KEY(fall*) | TITLE-ABS-KEY(hospital* OR inpatient*) | English; 2000-2025; articles and reviews | 187 |
Numbers at Each Stage
Records identified across the four databases: 681. Duplicates removed using reference management software and manual checking: 263, leaving 418 records. Titles and abstracts screened by two reviewers independently: 418; excluded: 362, with disagreement on 21 resolved by discussion. Full texts sought: 56; not retrievable: 2. Full texts assessed: 54; excluded: 42, for these reasons: no fall outcome reported, 17; no comparison group or period, 11; setting outside scope, 8; rounding bundled with several unrelated fall interventions so that its effect could not be separated, 6. Studies retained: 12, including 1 systematic review, 1 cluster randomized trial, 2 controlled before-and-after studies, 3 interrupted time series, and 5 uncontrolled before-and-after studies. Reporting of these stages follows the PRISMA 2020 statement so that each number can be traced (Page et al., 2021).
Supplementary Searching
Reference lists of the retained systematic review and of the three most recent retained studies were checked by hand, yielding 1 additional study not found in the databases, which is included in the count of 12 above. A systematic review of hourly rounding published in 2014 was used as a check on completeness: all of its included studies that met our eligibility criteria were retrieved by our search (Mitchell et al., 2014). Gray literature, such as conference abstracts and hospital reports, was not searched, which is a stated limitation because uncontrolled local evaluations of rounding programs are often published only in that form.
Decisions and Their Reasons
The setting block was omitted in the Cochrane Library because its records are few and adding a third block excluded relevant reviews in a test run. The term "comfort rounds" was added to PubMed after an early test showed that British studies use it. The year limit starting in 2000 was chosen because structured hourly rounding programs were first described in the literature in the mid-2000s, and earlier records in test searches were not relevant. Search strings were saved in each database, and the full strings, with the date run, are available so the search can be updated or repeated.
Limitations of the Search
Only four databases were searched, and only reports in English were eligible. Studies that reported falls only as a secondary outcome may have been missed if falls did not appear in the title, abstract, or indexing. The retained set is dominated by before-and-after designs, which reflects the literature rather than the search, and the appraisal in the next stage will need to weigh that heavily. If a later update of the search is needed, for example before the project is written up, it will be rerun with the same saved strings and date limits extended, and only records added since January 15, 2026 will be screened, so that the two runs can be combined without screening the whole set again. Any change to a string will be recorded with its reason, in the same way as the decisions above.
References
Melnyk, B. M., & Fineout-Overholt, E. (2023). Evidence-based practice in nursing and healthcare: A guide to best practice (5th ed.). Wolters Kluwer.
Mitchell, M. D., Lavenberg, J. G., Trotta, R. L., & Umscheid, C. A. (2014). Hourly rounding to improve nursing responsiveness: A systematic review. Journal of Nursing Administration, 44(9), 462-472. https://doi.org/10.1097/NNA.0000000000000101
Page, M. J., McKenzie, J. E., Bossuyt, P. M., Boutron, I., Hoffmann, T. C., Mulrow, C. D., Shamseer, L., Tetzlaff, J. M., Akl, E. A., Brennan, S. E., Chou, R., Glanville, J., Grimshaw, J. M., Hrobjartsson, A., Lalu, M. M., Li, T., Loder, E. W., Mayo-Wilson, E., McDonald, S., ... Moher, D. (2021). The PRISMA 2020 statement: An updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ, 372, Article n71. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n71
NU 760 Unit 2 instructions, in plain terms
This unit's task is to plan and document a literature search for your clinical question. You will restate the question, set inclusion and exclusion criteria, choose databases, build search strings with subject headings and keywords combined by Boolean operators, report numbers at each screening stage and explain key decisions. Many versions ask for a PRISMA-style flow description or diagram. Check how many databases your section requires and whether gray literature counts. The aim is reproducibility, so record dates, limits and the exact strings. If your search returns too few or too many results, describe how you adjusted it. The documented process matters as much as the studies found, because later units depend on whether the search was thorough.
Inside the NU 760 Unit 2 example
The strategy begins with the question in PICO form and a list of eligibility criteria, so every later exclusion has a stated reason. A table gives each database and its search string, with concept blocks joined by OR inside and AND between them. The numbers section reports each stage of screening as counts, which is the information a PRISMA diagram would show. Supplementary searching is described separately, including what it added. The decisions section explains choices a reader might question, such as dropping a term that produced irrelevant results. The limitations section names what the search could have missed and why. Each part is brief and factual, and the document reads as a record rather than an essay.
Where the points sit in the NU 760 Unit 2 rubric
In this course, Herzing's search strategy rubric generally rewards the clinical question and criteria, the database selection, search terms and strings, documentation of results, and writing. Criteria points require clear inclusion and exclusion rules linked to the question. Database selection earns credit for sources appropriate to nursing and the topic, such as CINAHL and PubMed. Search terms tend to decide the grade, and the top band needs subject headings and keywords combined correctly with Boolean operators. Documentation points go to counts at each stage and reproducible detail such as dates and limits. Some rubrics add a row on limitations. The writing criterion covers clear presentation and APA 7, including the PRISMA 2020 statement by Page and colleagues.
NU 760 Unit 2 help before you submit
Unit 2 search documents tend to lose credit for listing keywords without showing how they were combined. Another common gap is no counts, or counts that do not add up from one stage to the next. Students often search a single database and call it comprehensive. Subject headings are frequently ignored in favor of keywords alone. Leaving out the search date makes the strategy impossible to repeat. Eligibility criteria are sometimes written after screening, which shows in inconsistent exclusions. Limitations are often missing or generic. Finally, if your section requires a PRISMA diagram, make sure its numbers match the text, because graders compare them and a mismatch suggests the search was not tracked carefully.
Get a NU 760 Unit 2 example written to your instructions
Send the Unit 2 instructions and the rubric from your NU 760 classroom, plus your problem statement and any searching you have already done. We write a custom example that documents the databases, terms, operators and yield at a level somebody could reproduce, and return it in 24 to 48 hours. The first custom sample is free.
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NU 760 Unit 2 questions, answered
How much detail does a search strategy need?
Enough for somebody else to obtain your results. That means the database, the exact terms, whether you used subject headings, how the terms were combined, what filters you applied and over what date range. If a reader would have to guess at any of those, the strategy has been described rather than documented, and reproducibility is the criterion being graded.
What if my search returns almost nothing?
Report it and proceed. A thin yield tells you something real about the evidence base, and faculty read it as a finding rather than a failure. What costs marks is broadening the question until results appear, because the question you then answer is no longer the one your problem statement posed, and the mismatch shows up in later units.
Do guidelines and agency reports count?
Include them and keep them in their own section. A clinical guideline is a synthesis somebody else performed under their own assumptions, so it carries different weight from a primary study and belongs in a separate part of your yield. Combining the two makes the evidence base look larger and stronger than it is, which appraisal in the next unit will expose.
Where can I find a free NU 760 Unit 2 sample paper?
The complete NU 760 Unit 2 hourly rounding search strategy is posted here free, with search strings, counts and decisions. A custom strategy can be built for your own clinical question and the databases your section requires.
How do I document a literature search for a nursing paper?
Record each database, the date, the exact search string, limits and the number of records at every stage. This sample lists all four databases with full strings and reports counts from 681 records down to the retained studies.