Nurses are an important lifeline of healthcare system. They are required to deliver best possible skilled quality care, noting the human psychological needs. Extensive support tools are required to achieve these goals which are supplemented by their years of knowledge and training. Nursing research is a systematically approach to help grow the nursing profession, education, administration and informatics. The disciplined scope irons out problems and aims to develop, refine and expand knowledge.
It emphasizes the need for nutrition, comfort and safety, highlighting the role for nursing professionals. This emphasis has in the past decade empowered patients with benefits of health care. Abstract The development in research began earnest forty years ago, when scholars and eminent subjective professionals expressed concerns in lack of core research. The research era is divided into Pre-1960 and Post-1960 era. Pre-1960: The foundation was laid by Florence Nightingale, with her land mark publication Notes on Nursing (1859).
It was a result of research work on data collection, analysis relating to factors affecting soldier mortality and morbidity during the Crimean war. The classical work was a birth to promote physical and emotional well-being. Research at the turn of the century was devoted to the problems confirming nurses. The shift was later focused to quality education. The growth of journals was seen in the early 50’s, with the journal Nursing Research being published, which helped researchers to report their studies to the nursing community.
Post-1960: The research emphasis was on a more practical approach, with research opportunity in: • Chronic illness or conditions • Post operative treatment • Community health concerns Government policies in health care led to the funding in research projects in universities and hospitals. The management for nursing research projects was divided into: Quantitative research – Based in paradigm of logical positivism, which is deliverable and are measured using statistics. Clinical trials of a drug are a sophisticated analysis involving a large data crunching.
Emphasis on existing phenomenal patterns . Conclusion Nursing research has cruised a long way, keeping a subjective ideology initially to a more practical approach presently.
The aim of research should- 1. Advance to adopt the best clinical evidence in making patient care decisions. Need for cost effective, clinically appropriate and result in positive outcomes for clients. 2. Need to reduce cost of heath care and the need to institute cost containment practices being in health care facilities. Document activities to enhance accountability and effectiveness of their practice to customers, health care administrations third party (insurance companies) and government agencies.
Describe the characteristics of a particular nursing situation about which little is known in nursing care, to predict the probable outcomes of certain decisions, to control the occurrences of undesired outcomes and to initiate activities to promote desired fruitful results. In order to reach the desired state, the domains identified should implemented: Leadership and planning, work environment, legislation/regulation/policy public relations and professional education. The approach of research should line up with the benefits catching up with Quantitative research and Qualitative research.
Researchers use deductive reasoning to generate hunches that are tested in the real world. Mechanisms should be designed to control the study, imposing conditions on the research situations so that biases are minimized and precision and validity are maximized.
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