A strategy to promote nurses' health research contribution in South Africa

Abstract

Professionals in the medical field often question the value and contribution nurses make through research. To counteract these perceptions, to create awareness of nurses of their role in contributing to the body of knowledge of nursing and to improve the implementation of research findings, it is important to design and implement a strategy for the promotion of all aspects of research by nurses. This research intended to describe and explore the contribution of research by nurses in South Africa. This was done by exploring perceptions of stakeholders, as well as analysing the nature of research by nurses listed in the Nexus database and published articles. This information was used to explore and describe a strategy to promote nurses' research contribution, and to explore the feasibility of this strategy in the Southern District of the North West Province. An explorative and descriptive, qualitative and quantitative design was employed in this research. A literature study preceded the execution of the research. The research was conducted in three phases. The first phase consisted of a Delphi study, which resulted in the formulation of a proposed strategy. In a follow-up phase, eleven focus group interviews were conducted with groups in the Southern District of the North West Province to verify the proposed strategy and to explore the feasibility of the strategy. During the last phase a profile of research conducted by nurses in South Africa was composed . Information gathered through all the phases of the research revealed similar results about important aspects of research by nurses. This contributed mainly to the development of a strategy to promote nurses' research. This strategy was verified and refined and is recommended for implementation in the Southern District of the North West Province, with the intention to evaluate the impact of the strategy for refinement and wider application.