Palliative Care and Nursing Research Process Overview
This paper examines palliative care as a prominent area of nursing research that has improved patient outcomes in the United States, discussing how the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program integrates palliative care competencies. It also compares the nursing process and the research process, identifying key similarities — such as systematic planning and data collection — alongside important differences in scope and purpose. Finally, the paper reviews three scholarly articles addressing pediatric palliative care, nursing research in education, and the development of the nursing process through action research, summarizing each article's core contributions to the field.
- Introduction: Overview of paper's three-part structure
- Palliative Care as an Area of Nursing Research: Palliative care improves outcomes; BSN role
- Similarities and Differences Between the Nursing and Research Processes: Comparing scope, steps, and purpose of both processes
- Literature Review of Three Research Articles: Summaries of three palliative care and nursing articles
- Discussion and Conclusion: Synthesis of palliative care and process findings
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper is clearly organized into distinct, labeled sections that each address a specific task, making it easy to follow the progression from identification of a research area to process comparison to literature review.
- It draws direct, concrete connections between the nursing process and the research process, using parallel structure to highlight both similarities and differences without overstating either.
- The inclusion of a direct quotation from Klick and Hauer (2010) grounds the literature review section in primary source language, lending credibility to the summary.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates comparative analysis as its central academic technique. By systematically identifying shared characteristics — such as stepwise planning and data collection — and contrasting differences in scope and purpose between the nursing process and the research process, the author shows how two related professional frameworks can be examined side by side using structured academic reasoning.
Structure breakdown
The paper follows a three-part structure mirroring a standard assignment format: an introductory overview, three numbered substantive sections (palliative care identification, process comparison, and literature review), and a brief discussion/conclusion. Each section performs a discrete analytical function, and the discussion synthesizes the findings of all three sections in summary form before the reference list closes the paper.
Introduction
This study is divided into three parts. The first part identifies palliative care as an area of nursing research that has improved patient outcomes. The second part discusses the differences and similarities between the nursing process and the research process. The final part reviews three articles that focus on palliative care and the nursing research process, summarizing the abstract of each article.
Palliative Care as an Area of Nursing Research
An area of nursing research that has improved patient outcomes in the United States is palliative care. Palliative care is a specialized healthcare segment that prevents and minimizes patients' suffering and pain. Patients suffering from end-of-life conditions, curable illnesses, and chronic diseases can be placed under palliative care to improve their quality of life. Moreover, palliative care assists patients in integrating the spiritual and psychological aspects of their care. Serious illness can cause physical symptoms such as fatigue and nausea, and patients may also experience psychological symptoms such as anxiety or depression. Palliative care is an effective treatment strategy to relieve these symptoms.
The Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program prepares nurses for palliative care practice because nurses need to possess knowledge of palliative care nursing. Typically, the BSN equips nurses with the skills to offer palliative care services to patients. A BSN degree also prepares nurses in palliative care treatment, enabling them to offer timely, compassionate nursing care in accordance with healthcare practice standards. Integration of palliative care content into the BSN curriculum improves the skills and competence of nurses so that they can provide safe and effective care to palliative care patients. Moreover, the BSN program prepares nurses to develop a holistic plan of palliative care to meet the needs of patients suffering from various diseases. Importantly, nurses have an ethical responsibility to respect patients' choices regarding palliative care. When patients make uninformed choices concerning their care, it is the nurse's responsibility to counsel them toward the most appropriate option.
Similarities and Differences Between the Nursing and Research Processes
Research is a systematic inquiry leading to the discovery of new knowledge. The research process shares a structural relationship with the nursing process; however, despite some similarities, there are also important differences between the two. Nurses engage in a form of inquiry each time the nursing process is applied, but the nursing process focuses on outcomes for specific individual clients. The research process, by contrast, is applied to a larger population. Furthermore, the outcome of the research process is to generate new knowledge, while the outcome of the nursing process is to implement and maintain positive changes in patients, families, and communities.
Despite these differences, the nursing process and the research process share meaningful similarities. Both involve systematic planning, and the success of each step in either process depends on the steps that follow, working toward a decisive conclusion. The nursing process is a method of achieving and initiating nursing care in which each step depends on the previous one, leading to an action or decision. The assessment stage in the nursing process involves the active organization and collection of objective and subjective data, leading to a logical, comprehensive, and systematic identification of the client's problem. Similarly, the research process involves planning that includes the objective collection and active organization of data, leading to the logical identification of the research problem the researcher seeks to address.
The nursing process also involves a judgment phase leading to the diagnosis of a client's problem. The diagnosis stage allows nurses to analyze and interpret data in order to reach a professional decision regarding the client's condition. Similarly, the research process involves analysis and interpretation of data to arrive at research findings. Although both processes use different approaches to problem-solving, the objective of each is fundamentally the same: to solve a problem by identifying it, then collecting and analyzing relevant data.
References
Akinsanya, J. A. (1988). Nursing research — A demystifying process. Nurse Education Today, 8(5), 284–288.
Klick, J. C., & Hauer, J. (2010). Pediatric palliative care. Current Problems in Pediatric and Adolescent Health Care, 40(6), 120–151.
Lauri, S. (1982). Development of the nursing process through action research. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 7(4), 301–307.
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