Introduction
At first thought, it seems to strain credulity that nurses would want money for nursing research. The great majority, after all, are engaged with nursing tasks, which leaves very little time for anything else. But then the idea occurs that nurses know how to do their jobs, and do them well. And that knowledge came from somewhere, from nursing schools of education, certainly, but going further back, nurse educators know how to do their jobs, too, and they had to learn that somewhere. Enter nursing research.
The people who do nursing research are few enough, on the grand scale of things—probably only several hundred during the history of nursing. For the first hundred years or so of nursing practice, advances were made slowly, perhaps because nursing was then a female-dominated profession, not deemed important enough to be considered a real profession. But researchers there are, like Katherine Kolcaba, Afaf Meleis, and Jean Watson, who spend their careers making life more centered in the sciences of nursing, thus elevating the profession. Nursing research is that important.
"Nursing to Improve Care, Alleviate Suffering, and Advance Well-Being"
It is true that nursing is a science, or rather, a collection of sciences. Nursing Research is a journal of nursing science, and is important for that reason, but it is also important because it has a long history of service to the nursing profession. According to its website, it publishes empirical findings about quality of care issues, among other things, nursing education when it is focused on issues related to research curriculum, biology reviews concerning advances in the biological sciences where it concerns nursing science, and the development of new methods, informatics and analytics (Nursing Research, 2016). Evidence-based practice was once a nursing theory that proved beneficial and is now a part of all nursing practice.
Evidence-Based Practice
Stevens (2013) writes about evidence-based practice and talks about how it has been used across the spectrum of nursing practice. But that was only one step in a longer spectrum of steps that will emerge in the future. Nursing care changes, with each idea and each researcher doing his or her part. Care is always being redesigned so that it can be more effective, safer, and more efficient (Stevens, 2013). Indeed, as Stevens tells us, "[i]n line with multiple direction-setting recommendations from national experts, nurses have responded to launch initiatives that maximize the valuable contributions that nurses have made, can make, and will make, to fully deliver on the promise of EBP. Such initiatives include practice adoption; education and curricular realignment; model and theory development; scientific engagement in the new fields of research; and development of a national research network to study improvement." That is what research has made in the nursing profession.
The Nursing Profession Now
As of 2013, the great majority of registered nurses are actively working in nursing (2.8 million out of approximately 3 million registered nurses) (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2016). In an example of what nursing research accomplishes, researchers have found that patient mortality is affected positively with nurse education. An article published in The Lancet journal in 2014 reported that patients who had complications after surgery tended to thrive post-op when staffing was complete (no surprise there), but also when there were higher numbers of BSNs among the staff. When the proportion of nurses who were BSNs increased by 10%, the mortality rate was lowered by 7% after discharge American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2016).
Nursing Research
But the truth is, all that research costs money. There is no definitive aggregate cost for nursing research—most cost accounting, if it is helpful at all, is listed under specific medical conditions, like stroke or the nursing home cost of dementia. But nursing research is certainly expensive. Salary for as long as the research lasts must be accounted for, and usually for several persons, not just one. Incidental costs—travel, meals, office supplies, overnight lodging, perhaps. It may not seem so much, but it all adds very quickly. And nurse researchers don't just have a pile of money lying about. If they work for a corporation (for-profit healthcare), it is easier to get money, but the search results may not so much move the nursing profession forward as bring prestige to the for-profit. If the nurse researcher works at a university, so much the better, but money is in tight supply there.
So the nurse researcher turns to other sources for money. This is usually awarded as a grant, which means that the researcher must scrupulously account for all funds, account for the basic research, and be prepared to debrief with someone when the research is completed. Of course, the more successful the research is seen to be, the more likely it will be to get money more easily in the future.
Conclusion
Nursing as a profession has bounded forward, especially in the last 60 or 70 years, by the rigorous application of nursing research. It is the reason evidence-based practice is so influential. Nursing best-practice protocols are another example of nursing research that has had a positive impact on the profession. There are many, many others, and nursing practice is changing and will need new research efforts if the profession is to keep up with the need.
But as budgets tighten, money has to be found elsewhere, outside of the hospital environment. More and more grant money will be needed, and requirements for it will be ever more stringent. But external funding has been the lifeblood of nursing research, and will continue to be.
References
American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2016). Nursing research. Retrieved from http://www.aacn.nche.edu/publications/position/nursing-research
Nursing Research. (2016). Nursing research. Retrieved from http://www.aacn.nche.edu/publications/position/nursing-research
Stevens, K. (2013). The impact of evidence-based practice in nursing and the next big ideas. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, Vol 18, No. 2. Manuscript 4. DOI: 10.3912/OJIN.Vol18No02Man04
