iHuman Case Study – Appendicitis

Current and Future Directions for Nursing Research

Nursing research continues to develop at a rapid pace and will undoubtedly flourish in the 21st century. Funding continues to grow. For example, NINR funding in fiscal year 2014 was more than $140 million compared to $70 million in 1999—and the competition for available funding is increasingly vigorous as more nurses seek support for testing innovative ideas for practice improvements.

Broadly speaking, the priority for future nursing research will be the promotion of excellence in nursing science. Toward this end, nurse researchers and practicing nurses will be sharpening their research skills and using those skills to address emerging issues of importance to the profession and its clientele. Among the trends we foresee for the early 21st century are the following:

· Continued focus on EBP. Encouragement for nurses to engage in evidence-based patient care is sure to continue. In turn, improvements will be needed both in the quality of studies and in nurses’ skills in locating, understanding, critiquing, and using relevant study results. Relatedly, there is an emerging interest in translational research —research on how findings from studies can best be translated into practice. Translation potential will require researchers to think more strategically about long-term feasibility, scalability, and sustainability when they test solutions to problems.

· Development of a stronger evidence base through confirmatory strategies. Practicing nurses are unlikely to adopt an innovation based on weakly designed or isolated studies. Strong research designs are essential, and confirmation is usually needed through the replication (i.e., the repeating) of studies with different clients,