Using research in community nursing

Abstract

Increasing the use of research in community nursing will only be achieved through a better understanding of the factors inhibiting the use of research and through investment in the different processes that have been found to enhance utilisation. In the report of a workshop on evidence-based nursing, Normand (1998, p. 22) comments: ‘In many spheres of activity, and in most industrial settings, the development of products and services is a larger and more expensive process than research.’ In contrast, in health care, the emphasis has been on undertaking research rather than on gaining an understanding of research findings, and facilitating the process by which they are adopted into practice, education and policy. The lack of attention paid in the wider health-care arena to the development side of research and development, and the utilisation of research is mirrored in the field of community nursing. For example, in Nursing in Primary Health Care. New World, New Opportunities (NHSME, 1993, p. 39), primary health-care nurses were exhorted to ‘ensure that their practice is based on valid up-to-date research evidence and that they initiate, facilitate and participate in innovation and research programmes wherever feasible and appropriate’, and it was stated that ‘Nursing research should be integrated into primary care nursing practice. Existing practice should be continuously evaluated to ensure that every nursing activity is demonstrably beneficial to individual patient outcome and population health gain.’