How to Write a Winning Clinical Nursing Thesis? A Step-by-Step Guide

Winning Clinical Nursing Thesis

If you are a nursing student learning how to write a clinical nursing thesis, you have landed on the right page. Nurses are primarily seen as the main pillars of the healthcare field, and with the new developments each day in this area, it is no surprise that nursing students often struggle with writing flawless dissertations.

First, you will have to choose one of the good nursing research topics. Then, you conduct your research and organise your ideas on the said topic. It’s a scholarly art; don’t worry if you lack at it – we are here to help you.

Getting thesis writing help from professional service providers can also help you a great deal in this regard. Let’s dive deep into the details now.

How to Write a Clinical Nursing Thesis?

You need to write a thesis proposal before you actually start working on your papers. If you are an undergraduate student, you must complete and submit the thesis in the final year of your degree. On the other hand, if you are a Master’s or PhD student, you shall have to complete and defend your dissertation first – then the degree will be awarded to you.

Before writing your thesis on a clinical nursing research topic, keep in mind that you will have to follow these steps:

  • You must be an expert in collecting the data from different sources. ‘
  • You must also have the ability to demonstrate the results of data analysis with the relevant descriptions.
  • Also, you will have to discuss the theoretical ideas and concepts in detail when writing this thesis.

13 Steps in Writing a Clinical Nursing Dissertation:

You might be thinking, ‘Do nursing students have to write a thesis?’ and if it is so, the answer is yes. If you are feeling stuck during the writing process, follow these steps, and you will be good to go. 

1. Selecting the Right Topic

The first step of the process is selecting the best quantitative nursing research topics for your thesis. Make sure that you do not rush the process because not choosing the right thesis topic will get you in trouble later.

The topic you choose must be something that you are genuinely interested in, and it must be relevant to your discipline of study. When you write a thesis on the right topic, the excellence of your work reflects it.

2. Introduction

Here, you tell your readers about your thesis topic in this section. You provide them with the history and rationale of your work and also present your nursing research questions here. No matter what type of nursing assignment you are writing, the introduction part of all your work will be the same.

You will also provide the readers with the background information on the topic of your research. Keep in mind that a strong introduction can assist you in achieving high scores in your thesis. Further, you can also review several nursing thesis examples to get a better understanding of how to write stellar introductions.

3. Getting Proof from Reliable Sources

Every dissertation, particularly a clinical nursing thesis, requires you to add data from different peer-reviewed journals like ‘Clinical Nurse Specialist’ or ‘Advances in Neonatal Nursing’ and others.

Apart from newspapers and books, you should also use different journal articles by reputable authors and academics. You should also use different online but credible sources when getting evidence for your main arguments.

4. Critically Evaluating the Evidence

Without evaluating the evidence in advance, you won’t be able to write a top-class thesis that other nursing students and academicians can rely on. You must show your supervisor a glimpse of all the supporting evidence by using different critical appraisal tools.

It will also show them the extensive study you conducted for your dissertation. Critically evaluating the gathered evidence is necessary if you want other people to rely on your work.

Image Description: The reliability of nursing papers on evidence-based research

Image Source: https://img.exaly.com/journal-chart/21583/impact-factor/graph.svg

Also, this is the same reason why you must choose the best nurse practitioner thesis ideas. There is so much relevant material available on such topics, and it’s easier to evaluate the sources on such topics.

5. Literature Review

Here is when you perform a comprehensive review of the existing literature on your topic of research. In this chapter, you discuss the fundamental theories that are relevant to the topics for nursing students.

The chapter concludes with the findings of the review of the secondary data. You must write this section while maintaining objectivity in your work and include all the valid sources that you encounter during research.

6. Significance of Work

Suppose you are a paediatric nurse writing your thesis on the eating disorders of kids. You must highlight the importance of your work to the reader. Finding the relevant passages from previously published works of different scholars strengthens your work.

In our example, you can quote the references of different renowned paediatricians in your field of work. You can cite examples of critical care case studies where the patients regained their emotional health/mental health/ physical health by the techniques you are discussing in your work.

Show the readers that your work is in compliance with the ethical laws and safety standards and there is no compromise ever on patient safety.

7. Clinical Standards for Auditing and Inspection

Irrespective of the research area you are working on, you must mention the relevant nursing policies and frameworks. It shall help others if they intend to use your work as a resource. It shall also make the future referencing of work easy for them.

Particularly, you must adhere to the different auditing and clinical standards and follow the inspection guidelines when working on your thesis. It increases the worth and value of your work.

8. Methodology

A nursing thesis is not done unless you develop a tangible and logical nursing research methodology for your work. Depending on the topic of your research, you can use the following types of methodologies in your work:

  • Qualitative
  • Quantitative
  • Mixed methods

General clinical nursing dissertations usually involve a lot of data analysis procedures. Not only this, you will probably have to use a lot of statistical tools as a part of your methodology for your work.

Image Reference: An example of using cutting-edge statistical methods in nursing

Image Source: https://elm.umaryland.edu/elm-stories/Elm-Stories-Content/Screen-Shot-2020-07-10-at-11.34.31-AM.png

9. Results

If you come across anything unusual while writing your clinical nursing thesis, you should note it down while completing the research work. The results of your research work must always reflect the actual outcomes of your thesis.

This chapter is where you present the actual conclusions of your study. In nursing dissertations, the most important chapters are the methodology and results chapter. Therefore, you must ensure that the results chapter is written with due consideration.

Here are two points to remember when you are working on your results section:

  • If your clinical nursing dissertation is of a quantitative nature, you should consider adding tables and graphs to include evidence for your arguments.
  • If the nature of your thesis is more qualitative than quantitative, then you will have to include the data extracted from different surveys, interviews, questionnaires and more.

When selecting the research topics for nursing, you should check beforehand the research work you will have to do for your work.

10. Recommendations

When writing the recommendations, ensure that they are factual and based on your experiences. This is practically the last step in your clinical nursing thesis. These recommendations and suggestions serve as potential pointers for the shortcomings in your current work.

If someone else in your field or you yourself want to continue the research work later based on the topics of the current study, it will help you a great deal. You can get clues for your further work from these recommendations.

Ensure that the references are written in a separate section, and that they are clear enough to provide the new users with a clear sense of direction in their work.

11. List of References

If the reference list or bibliography of your work is not in the proper order, you will lose important marks in your work. Therefore, you must ensure that your clinical nursing papers use the recommended format and style as dictated in your thesis handbook.

You should make sure that all the citations you include in your work are taken from reliable and credible sources. If you do not include the relevant sources in your work, it will count as plagiarism in your otherwise unique papers.

12. Structure

When writing a nursing thesis on any topic, you will have to make sure that you follow a persuasive writing structure. The dissertation you write shall stay on the topic and must have a logical organisation in your central arguments. Further, there must be a sequence and coherent order in your work.

However, the exact structure you should follow in your work varies from one nursing programme to another. It is recommended to check with your supervisor and read the thesis handbook in detail if you want to determine which thesis structure you should follow.

13. Final Proofreading

A long writing task, such as a clinical nursing thesis, becomes tedious after a while, and students are prone to committing mistakes when working on such papers. So when you have finished writing your dissertation, the proofreading shall become a must.

The ideal thing to do in this regard is to let your dissertation rest for a while. You must take a short break for some days and then come back to review your dissertation with improved focus and a clear vision.

Then, go through your papers and remove all the mistakes that you mistakenly or unintentionally committed in your work. If you find it difficult to do it on your own, you must get help from an online editing service in this regard.

Conclusion:

So, wrapping up the discussion, when writing a clinical nursing thesis, you should follow the structure we have described in this article. Be sure to select a good nursing research paper topic and support your main arguments with reference to evidence-based practices.

Lastly, review your papers on your own or get them reviewed by your peer health nurses or editing agencies. It will ensure there are no flaws in your custom work. For the best thesis writing help online, contact The Academic Papers UK and get the assistance you need with the nursing research thesis.