Week 1 - Preparation
March 9, 2026
For the first week of my senior project, I focused on setting up and preparing for my research. I’ve been reviewing a meta analysis video provided by Dr. Hight to familiarize myself with the process more and to further add to my schedule the finer details of completing one. As I was advised in the meta analysis video, I’ve set up my documentation journal where I will note down all decisions I made, why I made it, and the date. This will not only help with transparency about methodology but also help me remember what and why I did things. I then began to delve more deeply into the PRISMA guidelines to solidify my understanding of how I needed to tackle this process. It was extremely intimidating how much details and information required for the flowchart and checklist, but I believe if I stay committed to keeping a documentation journal, it will be very helpful in completing these deliverables.
To begin my actual research, I’m planning on using PubMed (Large database for medical research), Google Scholar (allow for extremely broad searches), CINAHL (nursing journal that is relevant due to role nurses have in discharge), and JAMA (large medical journal). Since I’ve allotted a large chunk of time to finding and screening studies, I may expand further if time allows. I have also been working this week on finalizing search parameters which includes defining concepts. For example, since I hope to compare interventions, I must define/include alternate wordings that relevant studies may use, such as “teach-back method” or “patient education.” I’ve also begun working on inclusion and exclusion criteria which I hope to finish soon that will allow me to screen studies and must be noted in the PRISMA flow chart. Once these have been decided, I will begin the large bulk of my work of reading through and screening studies to include/exclude.
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Hello Edward, your Senior Project, especially the focus on conducting meta analysis on a wide range of studies, sounds exciting! Meta analysis is definitely a new research method I’m hearing for the first time, but it seems that it will be informative, synthesizing insights about hospital discharge intervention from academia to reveal a new findings. While reading about your approach on screening and reading through academic sources for the meta analysis, I was wondering how much source material would constitute “enough” for the purposes of your Senior Project? I’m curious if you have a limit or stopping point in mind for the meta analysis since I would imagine in the research databases you mentioned, there would be a huge quantity of medical studies from academics, researchers, and experts from across the country to examine, as healthcare is a national problem. I’m excited to see how your research project progresses!
Few tips:
When you find a good paper, sift through their works cited and identify the ones they reference frequently in the text. If they mention a specific paper or result several times, that paper may be looking at.
You’ll often find that a given article is repeating one or a handful of analyses conducted elsewhere, albeit under different conditions, sampling pools, etc. These will be helpful.