A survey of clinical nurses’ research needs for research support from university faculty

Abstract

Supporting university faculty who are engaging in clinical research through continuing education can increase the effectiveness of education. This descriptive study aimed to describe the needs of nurses who are pursuing research and to clarify future activities to support their research. Data were collected using a questionnaire. Participants included 249 nurses currently working at seven different hospitals and who had conducted research supported by a university from FY2007 to FY2016. The questionnaire assessed the degree of difficulty of pursuing research and the need for support. In total, 177 nurses were included in the final analysis (valid response rate: 65.8%). The ethics review question had a median score of 3, indicating moderate difficulty. Both the methods and data analysis questions had median scores of 5 on the support need scale, indicating a high need for support, whereas the presentation question had a median score of 3 (moderate need for support). The literature review had the lowest percentage of participants who reported being satisfied with the support received, at 83.1%; however, 98.1% were satisfied with the support received for the ethics review. These results indicate that the following factors should be addressed to better support research among clinical nurses: teaching methods, reviewing the literature, selecting an appropriate research method, and analyzing the data. Our results also demonstrated that nurses were relatively dissatisfied with the methods of communication used in research. Nurses reported that future support should emphasize improving methods of support and effectively clarifying the needs of human resource development.