Developing a unified approach when developing a research strategy

The subject of this abstract is identification of clinical and academic perspectives on how to develop and enhance nursing research. Many authors give models that may be deployed to integrate research, development and practice. For example, Kitson et al (1996) describe a framework used to integrate research development and practice and identifies that a variety of partnership arrangements are needed in order to achieve goals of integrating research into practice. However, other authors identify barriers that exist when developing such partnership arrangements. For example, Lindsay (1999) describes the cultural divide seen to exist between researchers, practitioners and educators. Upton (1999) relates that some practitioners see research as esoteric and irrelevant to everyday practice and there are many practical difficulties in accessing research literature, due pressure of work and perceived lack of support from colleagues. In the present initiative examination of the Trust’s and University’s nursing research strategy was undertaken as it was thought that similar goals and aspirations could provide the basis for future collaborations. A number of shared themes were found. These related to development of a nursing research infrastructure and resource issues. Differences in emphasis, however, related to patient-orientated research priorities, differing staff development needs and funding issues. There were also different influences related to the operationalisation of the two research strategies. For example, an important influence from the Trust’s perspective was the Trust’s research agenda - as dominated by medical research priorities, made the nursing research strategy more difficult to implement. From the University’s perspective getting research into practice was seen as philosophically important but obtaining funding for research was of even more importance. It is thought this initial exploration of nursing research priorities from an academic and clinical perspective was important in order to develop a unified approach to the development and furtherance of nursing research.