The philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti once said: "We never see anything completely. We never see a tree, we see the tree through the image that we have of it, the concept of that tree; but the concept, the knowledge, the experience, is entirely different from the actual tree." In the JNPARR, many empirical manuscripts that have been published in past issues, and in this current edition, have focused on literature review. Examples of these empirical reviews appearing in this issue include the Electronic Diaries in Healthcare written by Ladores and Disclosing a Child's Difficult Diagnosis to Parents written by Sethi and Ladores. Literature review is a significant part of any research endeavor. It is important to conduct a literature review to assess what information is available about a particular topic of interest. Literature review allows the researcher to identify the gaps in the literature and enables the investigator to narrow down the research topic. Conducting a literature review is a skill learned at all levels of education, beginning as early as in elementary school, with increasing expectations in high school, and a critical skill for undergraduate and graduate studies. There are primary and secondary literature sources. Primary sources are found in refereed journals as a result of an original study. It can also be found in unpublished master's theses and doctoral dissertations. Secondary sources are summaries or critiques of primary sources on specific topics. Secondary sources are helpful when a topic is extensive; these sources provide a compendium of information regarding the subject of interest. Secondary sources provide readers a different perspective in understanding the literature especially when analysis of the literature collected has taken place. There are different approaches when conducting literature reviews, including narrative-, systematic-, meta-analysis-, metasynthesis-and integrative reviews. Narrative review is an older approach to literature review. The topic is oftentimes broad and does not have a defined search strategy. The review is purely descriptive in nature. Because of its lack of focus or the lack of a clinical question when doing a search, it does not provide a compelling evidence for practice change. It is sometimes referred to as scoping the literature and may land into selection bias when experts try to comb the literature to find information that would support their opinions (Whitehead & Maude, 2016). Systematic review is not simply a literature review. It is focused on a single question with clear objectives. Inclusion and exclusion criteria are laid out before the literature search begins. The search is conducted in a systematic approach whereby the selection and evaluation criteria of the articles are clear and explicit (Ebling Library, 2017). Systematic reviews combine the evidence of numerous studies regarding a clinical problem. It has become the basis of evidence-based practice initiative most particularly known as the Cochrane initiatives (Whittemore & Knafl, 2005)....
Background: Persons with mental disorders experience numerous disparities in healthcare. Understanding disparities present in the usual source of care, health services use, and health outcomes is imperative. Objectives: Study aims were to examine relationships among population characteristics, health behaviors, and health outcomes; and to determine the differences in the usual source of care and health outcomes in persons with and without self-reported mental disorders. Methods: This study was a secondary analysis of existing data collected from 2006 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Household Component Consolidated file. A sample of U.S. civilian non-institutionalized adults (N=622) was grouped according to three selfreported health conditions: mental disorders, physical illnesses and co-morbid mental disorders and physical illnesses. Results:The sample was predominantly male, White non-Hispanic and married; had a high school diploma, middle to high income, and private insurance; and preferred office-based clinics as the usual source of care, F(2,29)=5.94, p = .007. No significant differences between groups in usual source of care (p=.069) and physical health status (p=.490) but there was a significant difference in mental health status (p=.001). Conclusion: Mental status of individuals without mental disorders was better than those with mental disorders.
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