This paper reviews nine scholarly sources to examine the persistent challenges confronting nursing research, particularly regarding its perceived lack of practicality and applicability beyond the nursing discipline. It explores the tension between qualitative and quantitative research methods, the gap between theory and practice, and the push toward evidence-based and health-policy-focused research. The paper also considers feminist nursing research, the dissemination of findings, and data interpretation as factors shaping the field's future. Ultimately, it argues that nursing research's survival depends on reframing its contributions and broadening the venues through which its findings are communicated and applied.
Nursing research has become a question of practicality. Is it prudent to direct funding toward nursing research when so much funding is already being cut from health care broadly? Hallberg (2006) examines the utility of nursing research and its necessity for society from both a sociological and a medical perspective. The central aim is to bring nursing research into a more mainstream environment — one in which its practicality is more valued and it can be recognized as something applicable to future studies beyond the nursing discipline alone.
Nursing research tends to lean toward the qualitative side of inquiry. Although this orientation has contributed enormously to the medical field, it is not always what other scientists prioritize. Researchers in adjacent disciplines are often more interested in new scientific findings supported by numerical data — charts, graphs, and statistical analysis — because quantitative results can be retested more easily and expanded upon by others. This preference for quantitative research methods creates a persistent perception problem for nursing research.
Facing this challenge makes nursing research appear less important than research conducted by medical doctors or credentialed scientists. Yet the qualitative research that most nursing professionals pursue contributes enormously to the quantitative side of medicine, because it is qualitative work that enables correct procedures to be developed and facilitates the applicability of findings to the general public. This is the type of research that directly engages with the people it is ultimately meant to help. Getting it recognized at the same level as quantitative research, however, remains a persistent difficulty.
The gap that exists between the theory nursing research produces and the actual practice of that research makes nursing research a difficult concept to apply beyond the nursing profession itself. Nursing research is heavily based on developing new theories for what should be improved or newly implemented, but this does not always translate into practical action. Paim, Trentini, Guerreiro, and Jochen (2010) attempted to apply nursing research to broader venues and to analyze why it currently faces so many challenges.
It seems difficult to understand why research conducted by nurses is deemed less practical, yet this perception poses a genuine danger to the survival of nursing research in the future. Identifying ways in which nursing research can be theoretically applied to the hard sciences — and to the practice of not just medicine, but all health fields and professions — would make nursing research more important and reduce the challenges it currently faces. If applicability is the biggest challenge in nursing research, then finding better ways to put it into practice represents the greatest opportunity for growth.
As Paim et al. (2010) argue, a path forward for nursing research is to illuminate the ways that theory contributes to practice. Rather than treating theory and practice as separate entities, they should be understood as complementary. The central challenge is that researchers can find it difficult to connect one domain to another, when in reality theory affects practice and both must be analyzed together in order to improve either.
The concept of evidence-based nursing has emerged in part as a response to this tension, offering a framework in which theoretical knowledge and practical application are integrated from the outset of the research process.
"Shifting toward evidence-based and policy-focused research"
"Feminist nursing research as a model for adaptation"
"Publication venue and data presentation shape research impact"
Knowing the history of nursing research allows one to understand that the challenges it faces now have always been present. Its role within the health field has always been questioned because of its perceived lack of applicability and practicality. Macnee and McCabe (2008) note that when nursing research is compared directly to more scientifically oriented or physician-led research, it can appear to fall short. But when reviewed on its own terms and broken down according to what it actually addresses, nursing research can prove just as useful as any other health discipline.
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