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Nurses have always participated in medical research, but research in nursing in general is relatively new to nurses and research specifically in clinical practice to find answers to nursing care problems is even newer. However, it is generally agreed that one criterion of a profession is that it does its own research.
It was not until 1952 that nurses had a vehicle through which they could share their research findings with others. That vehicle was the magazine, Nursing Research, which for nearly 30 years was the only one of its kind. In the 1950s, most of the studies reported in Nursing Research were about nurses and nursing education. This prompted Virginia Henderson to write an editorial in the February 1956 issue of Nursing Research titled, "Research in Nursing Practice - When?" She commented on the dearth of nursing practice research as contrasted to the many educational and sociological studies.
Emphasis on clinical research to improve the practice of nursing began to shift in the 1960s as more emphasis was placed on faculty research as part of the teaching responsibilities and as more graduate programs were developed with emphasis on practice. It was not until 1960 that the first doctoral program in nursing was established and that was at Boston University. The sixties also saw an increase in baccalaureate and masters degree programs in nursing with research as part of the curriculum.
An excellent example of clinical nursing research is Ada Jacox's "Pain Alleviation Through Nursing Intervention," begun when
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she was at the University of Iowa. Dr. Jacox's study involved testing the effectiveness of three nursing strategies developed during previous exploratory studies.
A recent trend in research in clinical practice is to conduct clusters of studies with a central focus. This is one way by which faculty and students can make a real contribution to broad areas needing study, as opposed to individual studies. Another is that of consortia in which several universities join forces, each studying a different aspect of the subject in an effort to build scientific theory. It is generally agreed that the use of research findings does improve patient care.
There can be no excellence in nursing without a knowledge base on which to build, and that knowledge base can come only from the development of theory on which to base the practice of nursing. This theory is developed through and tested by research in an attempt to describe, or explain, the phenomenon called nursing. An acceptance and appreciation of research must be developed by nurses beginning in the basic program and intensifying on the graduate level if we are to close the gap between research and its implementation.
-M. Elizabeth Carnegie, DPA, RN, FAAN Editor Emerita, Nursing Research
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