Nursing research in the news

[cougarnurse]

Interesting article from the U. K.: Nursing research takes its place on world stage | Education | guardian.co.uk

Nursing, for many years medicine's poor relation, has come of age in the 2008 research assessment exercise (RAE). Academics in the field can justifiably claim to be world-leading in terms of research.
Nursing and midwifery was among the subjects with the most highly rated research in the results published today.

Half of the University of Manchester 's 57-strong department were judged "world-leading" and given the top rating of 4*, along with 45% of Southampton's 25 academics, 40% of Ulster's 26 staff and 35% of York's department of 22.

It is a surprising turnaround from the last exercise, in which the subject did relatively badly compared with more established academic disciplines. No university's department was judged worthy of being awarded the highest rating in 2001, which was then 5*. Only four won the second-best 5 rating.

But nursing was deemed to be an emerging research discipline and became one of seven to get "capability-building" funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England. Last year, the seven areas shared £22.1m in Hefce funding.

"All the investment is beginning to pay off," says Prof Hugh McKenna, chair of the nursing and midwifery panel.

Nursing has become an increasingly academic subject. Nurses now train in universities and get degrees on a par with other health professionals.

"Nursing has been entered in the last two RAEs, and there has been a lot of investment from funding councils and charities and the movement of nursing into universities," says McKenna.

"Most lecturers had to get postgraduate qualifications, and that's meant a huge increase in the number of nurses with doctorates, and early-career researcher nurses with very significant publications in high-quality journals."

Universities have been much more selective about the work and researchers they submitted to the 2008 RAE, which is partly why the subject has done so well, McKenna says.

"There are around 80 schools of nursing but only 35 submitted to the nursing sub-panel, compared with 43 last time.

"There seem to be some organisations who voted themselves out of the exercise because they realised they were not of the right quality," he says.

"There was much weaker research in 2001 than this time around."
Prof Maggie Pearson, who chaired the main panel that oversaw nursing, dentistry, pharmacy and allied health professions, says the result is a genuine reflection of the strength of research in the area.

"Nursing research has finally matured. We saw some stunning research – real theory-setting stuff," she says."It just shows that when you get the targeted funding, it does make a difference.

"There's some incredible quality there, which is great when you consider the enhanced role that nurses now have."

Prof Kader Parahoo, director of the Institute of Nursing Research at Ulster University, 80% of whose work was judged to be either internationally excellent or world-leading, says the result will increase the standing of nursing as an academic subject.

"People don't quite know what nursing research is, but it's about what nurses do," he says. "More than two thirds of the NHS's salary budget is spent on nurses so it's important to know that what they do is efficient and cost-effective."

Ulster's research includes looking at young people's sexual health, adolescent diabetes, why men with cancer take so long to seek help and older people's health issues.

"We've made tremendous progress if you look at papers published in peer-reviewed journals. It will help us attract more funding to address research problems, and give nursing a higher status," Parahoo says.