Nursing research

Nursing research

Nursing research is a systematic search of knowledge, testing assumptions and answering questions with evidence regarding facts and issues related to patient, health, environment and nursing profession.

The importance of research in nursing

To acquire and develop knowledge regarding nursing services

To achieve professional responsibility

To define unique roles that nursing plays in multi-sectoral approach

To incorporate research evidence into clinical decisions

To maintain professional identity and boundary of roles and responsibility in education and clinical side

To modify and abandon the services which do not contribute to quality of nursing care

Utilize cum contributor cycle in research model (UCCR)

      

Nurses and nursing students have many roles in research, forms a cycle that reflects their activities and degree of participation to conduct a research. Nursing research pool is the collection of published manuscripts related to nursing education and practice after conducting a disciplined research. The nurses undergo two phases during their professional period, that is, utilize and contributor. During their professional life, they encounter issues and problems in various setting such as education, clinical and community, which leads to problem identification. The nurse utilizes nursing research pool to search information on a topic and develop an understanding of evidences related to the topic. Then, the researcher set objectives, design, sample size and go for data collection. They proceed into data analysis and results. They use nursing research pool to compare the present study results and existed study to assess the validity of the study. In contributor phase, they prepare manuscript and send it for publication process to disseminate the results into nursing research pool.

These cyclic activities include the following:

• Participation of journal club activities to discuss and critique research article
• Attend professional conferences to present research findings
• Evaluation of research for its applicability
• Review of proposed methods for gathering research information

Sources of knowledge for nursing

Nursing research is designed to explore different ways to acquire knowledge to enhance the quality of care to individual, family and community. These are various sources of knowledge for nursing such as tradition, authority, experience, trail and error, logical reasoning and disciplined research.

• Tradition

Many questions are solved on the basis of tradition or customs. There is much information passed on to us by tradition. It has advantages and disadvantages. The information passed by tradition, may  not have any evidences or scientific rationale. On the other side, each individual does not require to spend time to begin to initiate anything related to nursing service. Nonetheless, since many years, the nursing students are taught bed making by following step by step by nurse educators. One can question about the need of the procedure in 21st century, as all the bed linens in hospitals are disposable.

• Authority

Authority consists of nursing expertise in their specialties and is authorized to take decisions. The person who has no experience will always depend on authority to seek knowledge. The person will get expert advice and guidance from the authority, however, the authority is not infallible and their knowledge often goes unchallenged.

• Experience

The important characteristic of human mind is the ability to generalize, to recognize regularities and to make predictions based on observations. Own experience is the familiar and functional source of knowledge of nursing research. Each individual experience may vary according to their perceptions, thus, conflicts may rise.

• Trial and error

This method is closely related to experience. Using this approach, investigators use alternatives till the solution finds out. Probably, we have used this method in our personal lives also. It is a practical and applicable one, but, it may be fallible and inefficient.

• Logical reasoning

It is a method of combining knowledge, experience and formal system of thought. Inductive reasoning is the process of developing generalizations from specific observations. For example, a nurse may observe the fear among hospitalized children with out parent’s presence. Deductive reasoning is the process of developing specific predications from general principles. For example, one can assume that fear does occur among hospitalized children; we might predict that they have to be with their parents. To be precise, an approach to highlight relationships as one proceeds from general to specific.

• Disciplined research

It is developed by humans and conducted with a disciplined format to achieve objectives. It is the most sophisticated method of acquiring knowledge. It has features of induction and deduction; tend to be more reliable than tradition, authority, experience and logical reasoning also.

• Borrowed from other disciplines

Knowledge can be borrowed from psychology, medicine, pathology and so on to nursing profession to achieve high quality evidence based nursing care. The disciplined research in nursing is diverse in regards to questions asked and methodology used.

Paradigms for nursing research

A paradigm is a general perspective on the complexities of the real world. It is based on the basic philosophical questions.

• Ontologic- What is the nature of reality?
• Epistemologic- What is the relationship between the inquirer and that being studied?
• Axiologic- What is the role of values in the inquiry?
• Merthodologic- How should the inquirer obtain knowledge?

The paradigms are two types; positivist paradigm and naturalistic paradigm. The traditional scientific approach to conduct research has its underpinnings in the philosophical paradigm known as positivism. It emphasizes on rational and scientific methods.

Positivists attempt to hold their personal beliefs and biases in check as possible during their research to avoid contaminating the phenomena under investigation. The positivists’ scientific approach involves using disciplined procedures to test the researcher’s ideas about the nature of phenomena being studied and relationship among them. The knowledge obtained through fixed designs, emphasis on quantitative information and generalizes the findings through deductive process.

Naturalistic paradigm is also known as pnenomological paradigm, represents an interaction between the inquirer and participants. It assumes that knowledge is maximized when the distance between the researcher and participants in the study are minimized. It focuses on subjective information from participants using flexible designs, emphasis on narrative information, derives themes from generalized perceptions such as inductive process and uses qualitative analysis.

Paradigms and methods of research

• The positivist research and quantitative research

It refers to a set of orderly, disciplined methods used to acquire information. Here, the researcher moves in from the definition of problem and selection of concepts on which to focus to the solution of the problem. It has started with pre planned plan of action. The researcher uses ‘control’ involves imposing conditions on the research situation so that biases are minimized, precision and validity is maximized.

The researcher gathers empirical evidence (from senses, not from personal beliefs and feelings) to address research questions. The researcher uses tools to gather information such as questionnaire, check list and Likert scale and asked the participants to respond to the questions. Usually, the gathered information is quantitative and findings can be generalized.

• Naturalistic methods and qualitative research

It is a method if inquiry exploring human complexity directly. These investigations emphasize understanding the human experience as it is lived by collecting and analyzing narrative and subjective materials. It is flexible in nature, occurs in naturalistic settings. Through an inductive process, the researcher integrates the evidence to develop a theory or framework that helps to explain the process under observation. These findings are grounded in real life experiences of people with first hand of knowledge of a phenomenon.

Common features of naturalistic and positivist paradigm

• Ultimate goals: The ultimate aim of both paradigms is knowledge. They seek the truth of reality.
• External evidences: The researchers do not rely on their own beliefs, but focus on external evidences through their senses.
• Reliance in human cooperation: To understand the people’s characteristics or experiences need for human cooperation is essential.
• Ethical constraints: Research with human beings is guided by ethical principles that help to protect the researcher and the study participants.
• Fallibility of disciplined research: All studies have limitations but, a small simple study also contributes to the body of accumulated knowledge.

Purposes of nursing research

The main purpose of research is to answer questions and solve problems of relevance to the nursing profession.

• Identification

Many qualitative studies focus on phenomena about which little is known. The main task is to answer such question is ‘what is this phenomenon’ and ‘what is its name’.

• Description

The main objective of the research is the description and elucidation of phenomena relating to the nursing profession. Here, the researcher observes, counts, describes and classifies. Quantitative description involves the prevalence, incidence and size. Qualitative researches describe the dimensions, variations, importance and meaning of phenomena.

• Exploration

Exploratory research investigates the full nature of phenomena and other factors with which it is related. For example, a descriptive quantitative study on post partum depression, focus on the factors contributing to post partum depression, its manifestations and coping ability of patient with post partum depression. This type of research is designed to explore the various ways in which phenomenon is manifested and on underlying process.

• Explanation

The goal of explanatory research includes understand the natural phenomena and explains systematic relationships among phenomena. It is related to a theory, which represents a method of deriving, organizing and integrating ideas about the manner in which phenomena are interrelated. It focuses on understanding the full nature of a phenomenon.

• Prediction and control

The research is able to control and predict the phenomena even without understanding what the real cause is, but, they can suggest some preventive measures. For example, the research predicts that as maternal age increases, chance for bearing a child with Down syndrome increases. The incidence of syndrome may be partially controlled by amniocentesis and encouraging women to be pregnant at the earliest. There are many examples of nursing and health related studies, typically, quantitative ones in which prediction and control are the key objectives.

Basic and applied research

Basic research is undertaken to accumulate information, to improve understanding of a phenomena or to formulate or to refine a theory.

Applied research focuses on immediate solution to an existing problem. For example, a study to assess the effectiveness of nursing intervention. Basic research is discovering general principles of nature and human behavior, but applied research is designed to indicate how these principles can be used to solve problems in nursing practice.