On completing this chapter, you will be able to: Describe why research is important in the nursing profession and discuss the need for evidence-based practice Describe historic trends and future directions in nursing research Describe alternative sources of evidence for nursing practice Describe major characteristics of the positivist and naturalistic paradigm, and discuss similarities and differences between the traditional scientific method (quantitative research) and naturalistic methods (qualitative research) Identify several purposes of qualitative and quantitative research

1. Introduction to
Nursing Research in an
Evidence-Based Practice
Environment
PIR BUX JOKHIO
Assistant Professor Nursing

2. Objectives
• On completing this chapter, you will be able to:
• Describe why research is important in the nursing profession
and discuss the need for evidence-based practice
• Describe historic trends and future directions in nursing
research
• Describe alternative sources of evidence for nursing practice
• Describe major characteristics of the positivist and naturalistic
paradigm, and discuss
• similarities and differences between the traditional scientific
method (quantitative research) and naturalistic methods
(qualitative research)
• Identify several purposes of qualitative and quantitative
research

3. What Is Nursing Research?
• Research is systematic inquiry that uses disciplined
methods to answer questions and solve problems. The
ultimate goal of research is to develop, refine, and
expand a body of knowledge.
• Nursing research is systematic inquiry designed to
develop trustworthy evidence about issues of
importance to the nursing profession, including nursing
practice, education, administration, and informatics.
• Clinical nursing research: designed to guide nursing
practice and to improve the health and quality of life of
nurses’ clients.
• Begins with questions stemming from practice-related
problems—problems such as ones you may have
already encountered.

4. Examples of nursing research
uestions:• Among current smokers, are more sources of
secondhand smoke exposure associated with
higher nicotine dependence and lower
intention to quit smoking? (Okoli, Browning,
Rayens, & Hahn, 2008)
• What are the late effects of cancer treatment
among long-term cancer survivors,
• What are ways in which survivors find support
and information that are not provided via
follow-up care? (Klemm, 2008)

5. The Importance of Research to Evidence-
Based Nursing Practice
• Nurses are increasingly expected to understand
and conduct research, and to base their
professional practice on emerging evidence from
research—
• to adopt an evidence-based practice (EBP)
• “ The use of the best clinical evidence in making
patient care decisions, and such evidence
typically comes from research conducted by
nurses and other health care professionals

6. Example of evidence-based practice:
• “Kangaroo care,” the holding of diaper-clad preterm
infants skin-to-skin, chest-to-chest by parents:
• As recently as the early 1990s, only a minority of
NICUs offered kangaroo care options.
• Reflects the mounting evidence that early skin-to-skin
contact has clinical benefits without any apparent
negative side effects (Dodd, 2005; Galligan, 2006).
• Rigorous studies by nurse researchers in the United
States, Australia, Canada, Taiwan, Korea, and other
countries (e.g., Chwo et al., 2002; Ludington-Hoe et al.,
• 2004, 2006; Moore & Anderson, 2007).

7. Roles of Nurses in Research
• Every nurse’s responsibility to engage in one or more roles along a
continuum of research participation.
• Users (consumers) of nursing research—nurses who read research
reports to develop new skills and to keep up to date on relevant
findings that may affect their practice.
• To maintain this level of involvement with research,
• Well-informed nursing research consumers.
• Producers of nursing research—nurses who actively participate in
designing and implementing studies.
• Academics who taught in schools of nursing, but research is
increasingly being conducted by practicing nurses who want to find
what works best for their clients.
• Consumer–producer continuum lie a rich variety of research
activities in which nurses may engage.
• Even if you never conduct a study, you may well do one or more of
the following:

8. Continue
• Participate in a journal club in a practice setting, which involves
meetings to discuss and critique research articles
• Attend research presentations at professional conferences
• Solve clinical problems and make clinical decisions based on
rigorous research
• Help to develop an idea for a clinical study
• Review a proposed research plan and offer clinical expertise to
improve the plan
• Assist researchers by recruiting potential study participants or
collecting research information (e.g., distributing questionnaires to
clients)
• Provide information and advice to clients about participation in
studies
• Discuss the implications and relevance of research findings with
clients

9. Example of research publicized in the
mass media:
• “Study doesn’t back abortion-cancer link.”
• According to the study, which involved more
than 100,000 nurses who were followed for
over a decade, having an abortion does not
raise a woman’s risk of breast cancer (April,
2007)

10. Example of nursing research break
through in the 1960s:
• Jeanne Quint Benoliel began a program of research
that had a major impact on medicine, medical
sociology, and nursing.
• Quint explored the subjective experiences of patients
after diagnosis with a life-threatening illness (1967).
• Physicians in the early 1960s usually did not advise
women that they had breast cancer, even after a
mastectomy.
• Quint’s (1963) seminal study of the personal
experiences of women after radical mastectomy
contributed to changes in communication and
information control by physicians and nurses.

11. Example of nursing research
breakthroughs in the 1970s:
• Kathryn Barnard’s research led to breakthroughs
in the area of neonatal and child development.
• Her research program focused on the
identification and assessment of children at risk
of developmental and health problems, such as
abused and neglected children and failure-to-
thrive children (Barnard, 1973; Barnard, Wenner,
Weber, Gray, & Peterson, 1977).
• Her research contributed to early interventions
for children with disabilities, and also to the field
of developmental psychology.

12. Example of nursing research
breakthroughs in the 1980s:
• Studies that led to the development and testing of a model
of site transitional care.
• Brooten and her colleagues (1986, 1988) conducted studies
of nurse specialist-managed home follow-up services for
very-low-birth-weight infants who were discharged early
from the hospital, and demonstrated a significant cost
savings—with comparable health outcomes.
• The site transitional care model, which was developed in
anticipation of government cost-cutting measures, has
been used as a framework for patients who are at health
risk as a result of early discharge from hospitals, and has
been recognized by numerous health care disciplines

13. Example of nursing research
breakthroughs in the 1990s:
• Donaldson (2000) identified as breakthroughs in
nursing research were conducted in the 1990s.
• The area of psychoneuroimmunology
• The model of mind–body interactions.
• Several studies relating to human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and
neuropsychologic function (Swanson, Cronin-
Stubbs, Zeller, Kessler, & Bielauskas, 1993;
Swanson, Zeller & Spear, 1998)
• led to discoveries in environmental management
as a means of improving immune system status.

14. References
• Pilot D.F, & Beck C.T. (2010) Introduction to
Nursing Research in an Evidence-Based
Practice Environment, In: Essentials of Nursing
Research: Appraising Evidence for Nursing
Practice, (07th edition):China, Wolter
Kluwer/lippincott Williams and Wilkins p-03-
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