REVIEW OF LITERATURE

INTRODUCTION
A review of literature is conducted to generate a picture of what is known
and not known about a particular situation. Relevant literature refers to those
sources that are important in providing in depth knowledge needed to make
changes in practice or to study a selected problem. Thus a literature review
is conducted to ascertain whether research findings are ready for use in
practice or weather additional study is needed. In creating research, the
literature review facilitates selecting a problem and purpose, developing a
framework and formulating a research plan the literature is reviewed before,
during and after the conduct of the study, so the study build on and is
compaired with previous research.

DEFINITION
a) “The review of literature is designed as a broad, comprehensive in-
depth, systematic and critical review of scholarly publications,
unpublished scholarly print materials, audiovisual materials, and
personal communication.

b) “Critical review of literature refers to the process in which the

investigator or reader examine the strength and weakness of the
appropriate scholarly publication or literature”.
PURPOSE OF REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Literature of review can serve a number of important functions for
nurses seeking develop an evidence based practice.
• Identification of a research problem and development of refinement of
research question or hypothesis.
• Orientation to what is known and not known about an area of enquiry.
• Determination of any gap of inconsistencies in a body of research.
• Identification or development of new or refined clinical interventions
to test through empirical research.
• Identification of relevant theoretical or conceptual framework for a
research problem.
• Identification of suitable design and data collection method for a
study.
• For those developing research proposal for finding identification of
experts in the field who could be used as consultants.
 • Assistance in interpreting study findings and in developing
implications and recommendations.

OBJECTIVES OF REVIEW OF LITERATURE.

The main objectives of review of literature are as follows-

• Determine what is known and not known about a subject, concepts or
problem.
• Determine gaps, consistencies, and inconsistencies in the literature
about a subject, concept or problem.
• Discover the unanswered questions about a subject, concepts or
problem.
• Describe the strength and weakness of designs/methods of inquiry and
instruments used in earlier works.
• Discover conceptual traditions used to examine problems.
• Generate useful research questions or projects/activities for the
discipline.
• Determine the appropriate research design/method (instruments, data
collection and analysis methods} for answering research question.
• Determine the need for replication of well-designed study or
refinements of a study.
• Promotes development of protocols and policies related to nursing
practice. (service, administration, education and research)

USE OF LITERATURE OF REVIEW

The literature reviewed can be utilized for both research and non research
activities.
I. RESEARCH – The major research focus of the literature review for
qualitative approaches and its used in the steps of research process
for quantitative designs are as follow-
i. Qualitative process – the use of the literature review depends on
the selected designs types and phases, usually an extensive data
base is not available.
a) Phenomenological – compare findings with information from
the review of literature.
b) Grounded theory – constantly compare literature with data
being generated.
 c) Ethnography – more conceptual than data-based, provide
framework for study.
d) Historical – review of literature is source of data.
ii. Quantitative – the review of literature is used for all designed/
levels. It is usually a step of the research process and used in
developing all the steps of the research process.
a) problem
b) need significance
c) question/hypothesis
d) theoretical/conceptual framework
e) designs/methodology
- Specific instrument (validity and reliability)
- Data collection method.
- Type of analysis.
f) Findings (interpretation)
g) Simplication of findings.
h) Recommendations based on findings.
II. NON RESEARCH – the major non-research focus of the literature
reviewed is on uncovering knowledge for use in educational and
clinical practice settings.
i. Educational settings – in educational setting the literature review
is used by students to develop academic scholarly papers and
prepare oral presentation or debates of a topic, problem or issue.
ii. Clinical settings – the literature review is used by nurses in clinical
setting to-
a) Implement research based implementation.
b) Develop hospital specific nursing protocols or policies related to
patient care.
c) Develop and substantiate hospital/specific quality assurance,
continuous quality improvement, or protocols and the literature
review is used by professional nursing organization to develop major
documents and standard for clinical practice and also to develop
practice guidelines.

SOURCES OF THE LITERATURE OF REVIEW

Predominately two types of sources are cited in the preview literature for
research both theoretical and empirical.
1. THEORETICAL - Theoretical literature includes concept analysis,
models, theories and conceptual frameworks that support a selected
 research problem and purpose. Theoretical sources can be found in
periodical and monograph.
a. Periodical – Are published over time, such as journals and are
numbered sequentially for the year published.
b. Monographs – are usually written on such as books, booklet of
conference proceedings or pamphlets and may be updated with a new
edition.
2. EMPIRICAL LITERATURE – includes relevant studies that are
published studies such as master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation.
a. Thesis – is a research project completed by a master’s student as a
part of requirement for a master’s degree.
b. Dissertation – is an extensive usually original research project that is
completed by a doctoral student as part of requirement for a doctoral
degree.
3. PRIMARY SOURCES – is written by the person who originated and
or is responsible for generating the ideas published in research
publication, a primary source is written by the person who conducted
the research e.g. nursing research articles.
4. SECONDARY SOURCES – a secondary source is written by a
person other than the individual who develop the theory or conducted
research studies prepared by same one other than the original
researcher, secondary sources represent the response to or a summary
and critique of a theorist or researchers work.
5. WEBSITES :Pubmed,Google Scholar,Google

SKILLS NEEDED FOR LITERATURE OF REVIEW

As stated earlier, investigations, literature reviews for several purpose. The
first stage of review of literature is a general, preliminary search that
attempts to locate all pertinent publications for a quick perusal. The second
stage is more critical review of the works to identify merits, strengths,
weakness and short coming of each.
I. CRITICAL THINKING SKILL –
Critical thinking is the rational examination of ideas, inferences,
assumptions, principles, arguments, conclusion issues, statements, beliefs
and actions. In critical thinking process, the investigator will engage in
following arts:
i. The art of thinking about his/her thinking so make it more clear,
precise, accurate, relevant, consistent and fair.
ii. The art of constructive skepticism.
 iii. The art of identifying and removing bias, prejudice and one-
sidedness of thought.
iv. The art of clarifying what is to understand and what does the
person does not know
II. CRITICAL READING SKILL AND ITS PROCESS –
Critical reading is a process that involves various levels or stage of
understanding.
i. Preliminary understanding.
ii. Comprehensive understanding.
iii. Analysis understanding.
iv. Synthesis understanding.
i. Preliminary understanding – it is gained by quickly and lightly
reading an article to familiarize with its content or to get a general
sense of material. The preliminary reading includes the use of the
following strategies.
• Highlighting or understanding the main step of the research
process.
• Making notes on the photocopied article.
• Writing key variable at the top of the photocopied article.
• Highlighting or underlining on the photocopy new and
unfamiliar terms and significant sentences.
• Looking up the definition s of new terms and writing them in
the margins of the photocopy.
• Keeping a research text and dictionary by your.
ii. comprehensive understanding –
It is skilled reading designed to increase understanding of the studies in
relation to the whole article. It is facilitated by the following –
• Reviewing all unfamiliar terms before reducing for the second
time.
• Clarifying any additional under terms.
• Reading additional sources as necessary.
• Making another copy of your annotated attitude and requesting
that your faculty members read it.
• Stating the main idea or theme of the article in your own words,
in one two sentences in an index card or on the photocopy.

iii. analysis understanding –

 The reader must ask questions about whether each explanation of a step
of the process meets or does not meet these criteria. An understanding
gained by reading for analysis is facilitated by the following strategies.
• Being familiar with critiquing strategies.
• Researching the comprehensive reading.
• Applying the critiquing criteria to each step of the research
process in the article.
• Asking whether the content meets the criteria for each stop of
the research process.
• Writing notes or the copy about how each step or the process
measures up against established criteria.

iv. Synthesis understanding - is combination of parts into whole.

The goal of synthesis understanding is to combine the parts of
research study into a whole. Reading for synthesis is facilitated by
the following strategies-
• Component of the study.
• The studies’ over all strength and weaknesses.

PROCESS OF REVIEWING THE LITERATURE

The accuracy and completeness of the literature of review depends on the

researcher knowledge and organization in conducting this review process
research

USING THE
LIBRARY

IDENTIFYI
CRITIQUING
NG THE
SOURCES
SOURCES

READING LOCATING
SOURCES SOURCES

I. USING THE LIBRARY.

II. IDENTIFYING SOURCES.
III. LOCATING SOURCES.
IV. READING SOURCES.
V. CRITIQUING SOURCES.
I. USING THE LIBRARY – using library facilities requires current
knowledge of the available libraries and their resources. The three
major categories of libraries are –

a. Public – public library serve the need of the communities where they
are located and frequently do not contain the sources required for
nursing research.
b. Academic library – academic library are located with in institutions
of higher learning and contain numerous resources for researchers.
c. The special library – the special library contains a collection of
materials on a selected topic or for a specialty area, such as nursing or
medicine.
The common sources or interest to nurse researcher in the
library include, dictionaries, encyclopedias, books, journals, monographs,
conference proceedings, bibliographies, directories, government
documents, audiovisual materials, theses and doctoral dissertations.

II. TO IDENTIFY SOURCES - you must first clarify your research

topic, conduct a brief manual literature search and than conduct a
computer search.
 Clarifying a research topic – a researcher selects a topic for study
and than proceeds to clarify and narrow that topic by identifying
synonymous terms can be found in thesauruses, such as “international
nursing index’s nursing thesaurus.

 Catalog – the catalog identifies what is available in the library. These

listings are usually available on an online computer. The catalog
listing includes books, monographs, conference proceedings,
audiovisuals professional organizations’ publications, theses and
dissertations.

 Index – an index provides assistance in identifying journal articles

and other publications relevant to a topic of interest. Indexes are
organized into two major section, subject and author.
- Subject – the research topic, synonymous terms and subheadings
identified by the researcher are used to guide the search through the
subject section includes headings and subheadings, and under these
headings several publications are listed.
 - Author – if you are familiar with the names of key researchers for a
specific topic, you can search the author section of the index. Some
of the key indexes used by the nursing researchers are –
• Cumulative index to nursing and allied health literature.
• Index medicus.
• International nursing index.
• Hospital literature index.

 Abstracts – abstracts include the same bibliography data as index,

with an additional brief, objective summary (abstract) of the content
covered in the publication. Abstracts are helpful in determining
whether sources are relevant to the research problem identified. Some
of the most commonly used abstracts in nursing research includes.
- Nursing abstracts.
- Psychological abstracts.
- Dissertation abstracts.
- Masters abstracts.

 Conduct a computer search – after a brief manual search of the

literature you have clear direction for conducting a computer search.
Computer search are comprehensive, readily available and affordable.
The rapid expansion of published materials has made computer
searchers invaluable. A computer search will generate a list of
references with complete bibliography information for many of the
references abstract are also available on request.
The most common databases used by the nurse
researcher are following-
- Nursing And Allied Health (NAHL)
- Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online
(MEDLINE)
- Combine Health Information Data-Base (CHID)
- Health planning and administration.
- Catalog Online (CATLINE)
- Health And Psychological Instruments Online (HAPI}
- Audiovisual Catalog Online (AVLINE)
- CANCERLIT (CANR)

III. LOCATING SOURCES – you are now ready to locating sources

involves the following steps-
i. Organizing the list of sources- the list of identified sources con
be organized in several ways to facilitates locating them within the
library. Journal source might be organized by journal name and
year, which can greatly reduce the time spend wandering from
journal to journal. Sources include in the library
catalog can be organized by author or subject this organization will
not only make it easier to find these sources in the library but will
also assist you in eliminating any duplicated references.

ii. Searching the library for sources – searching for sources in the
library can be facilitated by talking with library personal to
determine the classification system; the availability of the
resources and publications, and the location of journals, books,
dictionaries, indexes and abstracts.

iii. Determining additional way to locate sources - need to identify

the sources that were located in the available library, i.e. the source
that are available in the library but were not found and those
sources that are unavailable. It should locate them through the
interlibrary loan department. Journal articles can also be obtained
by computer search if is published or interned.

iv. Systematically recording references – the bibliographical

information on a source should be recorded in a systematic
manner, according to the format that will be used in developing the
review of the literature section and the reference list. A systematic
recording process increases the accuracy of the reference in your
research proposal and report.

IV. READING AND CRITIQUING SOURCE – reading and

critiquing sources promotes understanding of the current
knowledge of a research problem and involve skimming,
comprehending, analyzing and synthesizing content from sources.
An expertise in reading and critiquing sources is essential in
developing a quality literature review.
i. Skimming source – skimming is a quick review of a source to
gain a broad overview of the content; you would probably read the
title, author’s name, and an abstract or introduction for the source.
Than you would read the major headings and sometimes one or
 two sentences under each heading. Lastly, the concluding or
summary in reviewed.
ii. Comprehending source – comprehending a source requires that
the entire source be read carefully. You focus on understanding
major concepts and the logical flow of ideas within the source. The
content that is considered significant is highlighted and sometimes
ideas are recorded in the margins. Notes might be recorded on
photocopies, of articles, indicating where the information will be
used in developing a research proposal. The information
highlighted on theoretical sources might include relevant concepts,
definitions of those concepts, and relationship ideas about content
that develop while reading a source.
iii. Analyzing sources – the content of the sour e is divided into parts,
and the parts are examined in depth for accuracy, completeness,
uniqueness if information, organization and relevance of each part
of the source for the study to be conducted. The critiquing process
instep of comprehension, comparison, analysis, evaluation and
conceptual clustering
iv. Synthesis of source content – through synthesis, one can cluster
and interrelate ideas from a gestalt, and synthesis involves
clarifying the meaning obtained from the source as a whole. This
meaning should than be paraphrased. Paraphrasing involves
expressing clearly and concisely the ideas of an author in your own
words. The meanings of these sources are then connected to the
proposed study. Lastly the meaning obtained from all sources are
combined, or clustered to determine the current knowledge of the
research problem.
v. Integrative review of nursing research – integrative review are
conducted to identify, analyze and synthesize the results from the
independent studies to determine the current knowledge (what is
known and not known) in a particular area. (Ganong 1987; Smith
and Stullenbarger 1991) These reviews include comprehensive list
of references and summarizing empirical literature for selected
topics. (Cooper; 1984).

WRITING THE REVIEW OF LITERATURE

A thorough, organized literature review will facilitate developing a research

proposal. Writing the review of literature involves the selection of relevant
sources, organization of those sources, and mechanics of writing the review.
 • Selections of relevant sources – sources are selected for inclusion in
the literature review based on their quality and relationship to the
problem and the purpose of the proposed study. Analysis of each
source determines its quality and usefulness in developing the
research proposal or report.
• Organizing of sources – the literature of review for a research
proposal includes the following headings and essential content-
a. Introduction – introduction indicates the focus or the purpose of the
literature review; describe the organization of sources; it should be
from least to most important of from least to most current. It should be
brief and catch the interest of the reader.
b. Theoretical literature – it should be organized by concepts
appropriate to the study. These concepts are usually identified when
searching for relevant theoretical and empirical sources and critiquing
studies.
c. Empirical literature – this section is often organized by concepts or
variables that are the focus of the study.
d. Summary – summary includes a concise presentation of the current
knowledge base for the research problem. The gaps in the knowledge
base are identified with a discussion of how the proposed study will
generate essential information.

MECHANISM OF WRITING REVIEW OF LITERATURE

• Writing the review of literature the development of a detailed outline

that will be used as a guide.
• In writing the main section of the literature review the empirical and
theorical sources must be prevented in a concise, accurate manner.
• Ethical issues must be considered in presenting sources. (Ganter,
1981)

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1.Dennis F.polit,Cheryl Tatano Beck”Nursing
Research , Principles and Methods ” seventh edition ,2006,published
by Wolters Kluwer Health p.v.t Ltd.New Delhi
2. Janet Houser”Nursing Research” 1St edition ,2011 Jones and Bartlet P
ublishers ,Hariyana
3. Lokesh koul ‘’Methodology Of Educational
Research”,thirs edition,2006,vikas publishing house pvt ltd.New Delhi

4. Suresh .K. Sharma’’Nursing Research And Statistics 2011 Subash

printers ,N oida.

JOURNAL REFFERENCE

 Atkins S, Murphy K. Reflection: a review of the literature. Journal

of advanced nursing. 1993 Aug;18(8):1188-92.
 Williams JK. A comprehensive review of seven steps to a
comprehensive literature review. The Qualitative Report. 2018 Feb
16;23(2):345-50.