Nurse Researcher最新文献

Background: Gatekeepers play a crucial role in successfully recruiting participants to nurse-led qualitative research, particularly in clinical settings.

Aim: To present the authors' experience of recruiting and conducting qualitative interviews during the COVID-19 pandemic with the carers of patients who have chronic haematological malignancies, and the effects that gatekeepers had on recruitment.

Discussion: The authors had to adapt and adjust their research plan because of difficulties in accessing their target population. Establishing and maintaining relationships with gatekeepers and a Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) panel was integral in successfully collecting data.

Conclusion: Ongoing reflexivity and feedback from supervisors, gatekeepers and PPI members in addition to developing research experience can help researchers to overcome challenges in recruiting difficult-to-access populations.

Implications for practice: Researchers need to be prepared for challenges to their research plans and carefully consider the options available for addressing these challenges. Reaching out to others is integral in expanding researchers' ideas.

Background: Free association is a core concept of the free association narrative interview method, an approach that is well-known among researchers in the UK who are interested in using psychoanalytic ideas in qualitative psycho-social research.

Aim: To examine the relationship between the framing of the psychoanalytic concept of free association in the contexts of qualitative research interviewing, clinical psychoanalysis and psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy.

Discussion: This article considers the definition of free association in psychology and psychoanalysis. It then explores free association's role in the free association narrative method, in terms of interview technique and the analysis of interview material.

Conclusion: Researchers should carefully consider differences in the contexts of research, clinical psychoanalysis and psychotherapy to avoid makeshift integrations of clinical concepts.

Implications for practice: The free association narrative interview method is an attractive approach for researchers interested in applying psychoanalytic ideas in their studies. However, researchers should carefully reflect on the meanings of the clinical ideas and terminology they use.

Background: Models are central to the acquisition and organisation of scientific knowledge. They can be viewed as tools for interpretive description as well as cognitive representations of an empirical phenomenon. However, discussions about how to develop models in qualitative research - particularly in the literature on thematic analysis - are sparse.

Aim: To discuss an approach to scientific qualitative modelling that uses the new technique described in the first part of this article ( Gildberg and Wilson 2023 ): the Empirical Test for Thematic Analysis (ETTA).

Discussion: The authors discuss scientific models and their inherent limitations and strengths, so that others may assess models and their potential.

Conclusion: A limitation of ETTA is the risk that excessive rigour and systematisation could reduce creativity in the construction of models. However, on balance there is a scientific need for qualitative researchers to improve their capability to refine and describe the techniques they use to construct models, adequately explain the reliable generation of models, and improve transparency regarding the epistemological and methodological basis for the construction of models.

Implications for practice: By using ETTA on qualitative data obtained from clinical practice it becomes possible to illuminate the interconnections among themes within the data. This approach not only assists in illustrating these connections, it also enables clinicians and researchers to gain a comprehensive understanding of specific clinical phenomena through the use of models. The process of developing and using these models enables the simulation and strategic intervention development based on data that addresses the specific problem being investigated.

Background: Appropriate costing and allocation of resources is vital to ensure that recruitment to a study is achieved on time and on target. However, there is little guidance concerning the workload associated with qualitative research.

Aim: To review the planned versus actual workloads in a qualitative sub-study following elective cardiac surgery in children.

Discussion: Parents of children approached for a clinical trial were invited to participate in a semi-structured interview to explore their views about making decisions concerning their children's participation in the trial. A workload audit was conducted using anticipated points of contact with participants, and the duration of activities identified in the protocol and Health Research Authority statement of activities; these were compared with timed activities documented by the research team.

Conclusion: The current system did not anticipate or capture the workload associated with conducting a relatively straightforward qualitative sub-study of a clinical trial with a research-engaged patient group.

Implications for practice: Understanding the hidden workload associated with qualitative research is vital in ensuring that project timelines, recruitment targets and funding for research staff are realistic.

Background: The strict restrictions implemented in England during the COVID-19 pandemic meant it was no longer possible to recruit or interview participants in person. However, virtual recruitment and interviews are not without their challenges, particularly when exploring sensitive topics.

Aim: To discuss how to overcome some of the challenges involved in recruiting and interviewing participants who have been critically ill with COVID-19.

Discussion: An exploratory, descriptive study was conducted involving interviews with 20 people who had been critically ill with COVID-19 and had been discharged from two community-based healthcare settings in London, England. Participants were interviewed at home after being discharged from hospital after at least one month. The sensitivity of the research topic meant strategies for recruiting and interviewing needed to be adapted, including involving patient experience facilitators, using virtual interviews, managing the distress of participants and self-care for the researchers.

Conclusion: The adaptations used in this study can be used in research involving people who have been critically ill.

Implications for practice: Researchers can explore innovative ways to recruit participants using hospital or community staff who are not usually involved in research. Virtual interviews require additional skills, such as building rapport with participants, so may require additional training. A distress protocol for participants should always be considered when discussing sensitive topics. Self-care and debrief strategies for interviewers are also critical.

Background: Appropriate costing and allocation of resources is vital to ensure that recruitment to a study is achieved on time and on target. However, there is little guidance concerning the workload associated with qualitative research.

Aim: To review the planned versus actual workloads in a qualitative sub-study following elective cardiac surgery in children.

Discussion: Parents of children approached for a clinical trial were invited to participate in a semi-structured interview to explore their views about making decisions concerning their children's participation in the trial. A workload audit was conducted using anticipated points of contact with participants, and the duration of activities identified in the protocol and Health Research Authority statement of activities; these were compared with timed activities documented by the research team.

Conclusion: The current system did not anticipate or capture the workload associated with conducting a relatively straightforward qualitative sub-study of a clinical trial with a research-engaged patient group.

Implications for practice: Understanding the hidden workload associated with qualitative research is vital in ensuring that project timelines, recruitment targets and funding for research staff are realistic.

Background: Nurses have a significant part to play in research. However, novice nurse researchers face difficulties in transitioning into research roles. These difficulties can affect their sense of identity, their clarity of role and the research process.

Aim: To highlight how reflexive processes enable novice nurse researchers to develop self-awareness, overcome tensions and navigate their dual identities as they transition into researchers.

Discussion: Participating in reflexive activities when conducting research provides the researcher with a biography of the experience. It also encourages the examination of thoughts and feelings that can inform and enhance the quality of the research, as well as the confidence of the researcher. Transitioning from nurse to researcher can be complex and present professional and ethical dilemmas, creating conflict when nurses adopt and adjust to the new role. Reflexivity offers opportunities to identify and examine these dilemmas and tensions, as well as support for nurses as they move into research roles.

Conclusion: Nurses hold onto their professional identities as they transition into research, viewing the researcher identity as complementary to their initial clinical professional identity. This dual-professional identity connects healthcare and research, but also creates challenges for nurses, so should be given more attention.

Implications for practice: More research is needed to examine the path from nurse to researcher and why nurses remain committed to their professional nurse identity. As nurse researchers are becoming commonplace in healthcare, research education programmes need to include strategies to help novice nurse researchers navigate the tensions between their nurse and researcher identities.

Background: Analysis can be problematic in research when data are missing or erroneous. Various methods are available for managing missing and erroneous data, but little is known about which are the best to use when conducting cross-sectional surveys of nurse staffing.

Aim: To explore how missing and erroneous data were managed in a study that involved a cross-sectional survey of nurse staffing.

Discussion: The article describes a study that used a cross-sectional survey to estimate the ratio of registered nurses to patients, using self-reported data by nurses. It details the techniques used in the study to manage missing and erroneous data and presents the results of the survey before and after the treatment of missing data.

Conclusion: Managing missing data effectively and reporting procedures transparently reduces the possibility of bias in a study's results and increases its reproducibility. Nurse researchers need to understand the methods available to handle missing and erroneous data. Surveys must contain unambiguous questions, as every participant should have the same understanding of a question's meaning.

Implication for practice: Researchers should pilot surveys - even when using validated tools - to ensure participants interpret the questions as intended.