Journal of Nursing Science & Practice

Journal of Nursing Science &Practice - ISSN: 2249 – 4758

Editorial

Nursing is an integral and essential component of any healthcare delivery system in the world. As medical science is moving faster with better, cost-effective and efficient and quality conscious approach in delivering healthcare all other sister disciplines can’t be remained silent. Nursing constitutes very large segment of health human resource in the country and more than thirty thousand new workforces is trained in India every year, however its quality is always questioned. Research is incorporated in curriculum of bachelor and master level nursing but it is usually a ritual and does not translate into practice.

Nursing Research is a scientific process that validates and refines existing knowledge and generates new knowledge that directly and indirectly influences nursing practice. Therefore, nursing research is more practical and evidenced Based. It has to include the values and preferences of the individuals, families, and communities who are served. It is a continuous interactive process involving the explicit, conscientious and judicious consideration of the best available evidence to provide care. In Western and developed world increasing number of nurses are working in multidisciplinary team and implementing evidence-based practice.  When delivered in a context of caring and in a supportive organizational culture, evidence based practice can help to achieve the highest quality of care and best patient outcomes.

There are several reasons for conducting research-investigations, description of phenomena, exploration, or prediction of occurrence of a specific phenomenon. In nursing the purpose of research are - to build a body of nursing knowledge, to validate improvements in nursing practice, to make healthcare efficient and cost effective.  There is increase in costs of health care and the cost-containment practices being instituted in health care facilities. Nursing research can play a role here. With research, costly trial-an-error and even unsafe interventions are avoided. Research may allow nurses to make more informed decisions. Nursing interaction time with patients and their relatives is much high that provide opportunities to them to enhance patients health, and initiate activities to promote appropriate patients behavior.

In India, research in nursing practice is vital because of existence of resource crunch and poor management and legal system. There are varied working stations for nurses in rural and urban setting. Wide variation poses great challenge to them for delivering quality care. Nursing academician must work hard to find out solution to improve quality of care in public sector and improvement of efficiency in private sector so that cost can be reduced. At the same time care should be of evidence based so that standards can be set through the country. Producing evidence and implementing and evaluating them are huge tasks. For these challenges existing teaching faculty need to be trained in research and new breed of nursing should be well equipped with the concept and tools of research so that they can appreciate research literature and apply their new minds for further improvement. Nursing research can be exploratory, description, analytical (or explanatory), and evaluation. Any method can be adopted according to the objectives and interest of the nursing personnel. But objectives should be framed on the basis of need, relevance, feasibility, cost and time involved in conducting the research. 

Current issue of the journal has interesting studies which cover wide range of topics. Study carried out to assess the effectiveness of training of caregivers of spinal trauma patients in log rolling and motion exercise  and skill development of caregivers in suctioning technique for home care of patients with tracheostomy tube  are the example of applied research in nursing practice. In public sector where patients can’t be kept for long term basis on wards because of huge numbers of patients waiting for their turn to get operated and after care can be given by caregivers at home. This decreases the patients load on hospital and cost of the care to the patients and hospital. Simple training of caregivers during the daily nursing care by the nursing staff can be useful for long term care required at home. Similarly training can establish the evidence of usefulness of counselling to parents of intellectually disabled children. 

Research based articles are required on innovations and practical solutions to the challenges faced by ANMs and lady health visitors working at sub-centers and primary health centers. Many areas need to be explored such as how to motivate them for home visits, how to improve ANC coverage, identification of risk pregnancies and timely referral, counselling of patients for health seeking when suffering from HIV, quitting of tobacco use, identification of mental problems, local safe methods of neonatal care, etc. Similarly research is required for our hospitals where interaction of nurses with patients and relatives can improve, how to counsel them for prevention of risk behaviour, how to manage their own stress and how to make their work stations safe.

Prof. Jugal Kishore

Department of Community Medicine

Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi