Presentation/Research in APIE format

[Clovery]

So I have an assignment due this coming week and I'd really love to get the bulk of it done tomorrow. My instructor isn't replying to my email (she said she was out of town this weekend) so maybe you all can help me out.

My assignment is a short paper (1 to 4 pages) and I must do an oral presentation with a handout to my clinical group. I've already compiled and read tons of references and I've pretty much already written the paper in my head, so getting it onto paper will be a breeze. My only issue is with the format required.

For the paper it says my references should be in APA format, which I have plenty of experience with, so that's not a problem. But then my syllabus says this:

"Your presentation/research must be in Nursing APIE format."

Do you think I need to write the paper in this format too? Or just in APA format? Since it's just a review of a topic I'm having a hard time conceiving it in terms of APIE. I need some ideas for making it fit into an APIE format.

This is for my peds clinical group and my topic is vaccines. I'm planning on discussing the various reasons why parents refuse or delay vaccines, the potential consequences of non-vaccination and what we as nurses should do or say to parents who don't vaccinate their children because of misinformation and general paranoia.

Thanks for any help you can offer. We don't get a grade on this, just pass or fail, so as long as I hand something in, worst case scenario is I have to redo it.

[llg, PhD, RN]

First of all, l want to say "thanks" for including enough information in your post. So many students just give us a vague notion of the assignment and then expect us to write it for them. You clearly have done your homework and are just looking for a little guidance and maybe a few suggestions.

I think the paper (written presentation) should be in APIE, too. That would be the "safe" route to take. Here are a couple of thoughts on how you might do that.

You could start with a brief introduction to "set up" your topic and the particular perspective (slant) you are taking of it. It is possible that you might have to "bend" your topic a bit so that it fits the required format -- but that's part of the skill of being a good student to make sure you pick a topic that is well-suited to the assignment.

The APIE format is a "care plan format." This assignment is designed for you to practice (and demonstrate) that you can plan care for a patient who has a need related to your topic. The assignment is NOT designed as an opportunity for you to simply regurgitate information about the topic -- it's at a higher level than that. You are to demonstrate how you would USE (apply) that knowledge to plan and provide care to patients. Does that make sense? I think it may help you really think about that difference to help you wrap your head around the reason for the required APIE format -- and to be in sync with your instructor's desires for the assignment.

So ... back to your paper ...

After the introduction that sets up the topic, then you could go through the APIE steps and discuss what you would assess in a patient, possible diagnoses, etc. Perhaps you should create a "sample patient" -- whose parents are resisting immunizations. You would assess their resistence, identify the relevant diagnoses, plan interventions to address the issues, etc. Within that APIE "care plan," you would integrate the information from your research on the topic.

I hope that helps. In the future, I recommend that you pay a little more attention to the details of the assignment before you invest a lot of effort in research, etc. In this case, had you realized sooner that you needed to present your topic in an APIE format, you could have conceptualized that care plan format from the beginning as you were choosing your topic and doing your research. Since you didn't conceptualize it in APIE format from the beginning, you now need to bend your previous work to make it fit the required format ... but I can see how it can be done in this case if you create an imaginary patient to serve as an example.

If you have a lot of "extra" information that won't fit into the APIE format... maybe you can make a handout of that information for the class as an addendum to your paper. You can just say that you found that information and wanted to share it with the class because you found it interesting. Perhaps that information could be put in a handout (shared with the class) of information you would give the patient. The best approach there would depend on what the actual information is and whether or not it would be appropriate to share with the patient or not.

Good luck!

[Clovery]

thank you so much for your detailed reply; it was a great help! I'm working on the paper now :)

[llg, PhD, RN]

Glad to be of help.