Posted: September 16th, 2017

utilising Orophrangeal Airway (OPA) devices as primary airway adjuncts. Should we bypass insertion of the OPA and move directly to an advance airway intervention such as a supraglottic airway device?

utilising Orophrangeal Airway (OPA) devices as primary airway adjuncts. Should we bypass insertion of the OPA and move directly to an advance airway intervention such as a supraglottic airway device?

The aim of this assignment is for you to find evidence (or lack thereof) to support an aspect of practice in the pre hospital setting and to report your findings. At the end of the review you should be aware of what is known about your topic and what questions still need to be answered.

Search literature for evidence in relation to – utilising Orophrangeal Airway (OPA) devices as primary airway adjuncts. Should we bypass insertion of the OPA and move directly to an advance airway intervention such as a supraglottic airway device?

Report such findings. Report all the search terms that you used and the databases you searched.

Try to find articles that find the highest levels of evidence first. If you cant find the highest level then try to find evidence at the next level down and so on. It may be that you find no evidence and the only reason a particular practice is carried out is because it is part of the guidelines in your organization. This can be regarded as, “evidence from the opinion of authorities,” which is the lowest level of evidence.

summarise the findings of your search. Summarise your findings for each article or other publication in a way that is suitable for the practice you are investigating. Use a consistent format. Here is an example of a format you could use:

Title of the article.
Full reference for the article.
A description and brief critical analysis of the research design. It is likely that you will find quantitative research designs and these are described in the text and/or other readings. However, you might find qualitative research as well.
A brief description of what the researchers did (the method).
The findings and/or conclusion.
The level of evidence for the article.

The formation doesn’t hugely matter but you should include a summary of the research design and what they did which usually comes under a heading like ‘procedure’ or ‘method.’ You should also include what the researchers found.

Fifth, write a conclusion about the evidence to support the practice you investigated. Report any gaps you find between practice and the evidence to support it. If you don’t find any evidence then also write a brief description of a study that could be done to gather evidence.

Include at least five papers but less than 25. The articles should come from academic sources like journals. Do not use review articles (unless they are a meta-analysis or Cochrane review), newspaper articles, Wiki articles, or blog posts.

Journal report style (Background/Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion, Conclusion) and a reference list in Vancouver style (in text and reference list – hint: use endnote). Headings should be used. You should include the problem and/or question (about the paramedic practice) you are investigating in the introduction. The method will contain your search strategy, and the results will contain your list of articles and your summaries of them. The discussion and conclusion will contain your analysis/summary of findings.