“Cardiovascular Disease in Women: Exploring the Influence of Hormonal Factors, Menopause, and Reproductive History on Heart Health”

• The abstract should be self contained, conscise, readable, and one page or less. It should outline what you intend to do, why you believe it needs to be done and what the results will mean in theory and in practice.

1. Background

• This section sets the scene for a naive reader who knows nothing about your research.

2. Significance of the study

• This section states why it is important to do the research.

4.  Research question and problem statement (Use PICOT format for research question).

• “How do hormonal factors, menopause, and reproductive history influence heart health outcomes in women with cardiovascular disease?”
• Must use PICOT format. Example: Are 30- to 50-year-old women (P) who have high blood pressure (I) compared with those without high blood pressure (C) at increased risk for an acute myocardial infarction (O) during the first year after hysterectomy (T)?

5.  Hypothesis

• These are clear statements that the research is designed to test.

• The first phase of the literature review should be brief but give the reader enough information to understand the context of the proposed research. It may include references to previous findings and specific studies similar to the current study, and to relevant methodology.

  
  

  A good literature review:

  1. includes all literature that is relevant to justifying the proposed research;
  2. does not include literature that is irrelevant to justifying the proposed research;
  3. supports undertaking the proposed research;
  4. avoids speculation and unsubstantiated statements;
  5. is critical (a critical review does not merely accept previous authors’ conclusions, but weighs them carefully, examining them on the basis of the weaknesses and strengths in the methodologies of the studies being reviewed);
  6. is organised under subheadings;
  7. forms a connected argument and has a summary at the end

Theoretical Framework

• The theoretical or conceptual framework (from a nursing theorist) identifies variables impacting on the research questions and their interrelationships and/or identifies theoretical and philosophical assumptions underpinning the study. The theoretical framework is often summarised as a flow-chart diagram, which shows relationships between theories, concepts and variable of the study.

Research design (Including, Materials, methods, instruments, setting, funding, implementation, data collection.)

• methods and materials (designs): 

  This section describes how you will answer the research questions. It must be sufficiently detailed so that another researcher would know from the written instructions how to collect the data

• instruments or material or apparatus or equipment: 

  The name of this section will depend on the type of research you are doing. It should include any equipment that you will need for the research and/or tests, questionnaires or interview schedules. Information regarding the reliability and validity of instruments to be used in the research should also be included in this section.

• procedure: This section describes, step by step, how you will collect the data.

• This section describes how you will use the data you collect. It is often useful to organise this section according to the research questions, explaining how you will analyse the data to answer each question. This section must be planned before any data is collected, otherwise it may be impossible to analyse the data in such a way as to answer the questions.
  

• You are expected to be aware of any weaknesses in your research and show evidence of attempts to overcome them.