what do nurses research

Nurses do research too, and here’s why it matters

UCLA School of Nursing assistant professor and researcher Nalo Hamilton works in her lab.

Think “scientific research” and one may imagine doctors, Ph.D.s or technicians toiling away in the lab. But many people don’t realize that nurses do research too.

Laura Perry, communications director for the UCLA School of Nursing, and Amy Albin, senior media representative for the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, spoke with Karen Grimley, chief nursing executive at UCLA Health and assistant dean in the nursing school, about why the concept of nurses as researchers may be surprising to some, although the work they do is vital to improving the health and well-being of patients.

The discussion coincided with the 15th annual Research and Evidence-based Practice Conference being hosted today and Wednesday on campus by the UCLA Health Nursing Practice Research Council and the UCLA School of Nursing. Geared toward clinicians, researchers and educators, the popular conference is designed to showcase ways to improve patient outcomes through science-based best practices and to provide opportunities for professional networking and education.

What is the history of nurses as researchers?

It started with the mother of nursing — Florence Nightingale. She was a renaissance woman as it related to health care in the 1850s. Her work was all-encompassing and based in research. She measured illness and infection rates among wounded soldiers in the Crimean War and used those results to petition the British government to improve conditions, first, for the soldiers and then for public health in all of England. Her book, “Notes on Nursing,” tells where and how the research was birthed.  

What gets you excited about nursing research?

The excitement and passion for me is when someone has that “aha” moment. Maybe they don’t think it’s one at first, but when you discuss the idea, it grows into a thesis statement, and then it’s a question they want to solve. Research creates a very synergistic, dynamic environment where you are forever promoting care, health and wellness. 

What barriers or obstacles still face nurse researchers?

It's us. Nurses have great ideas and see things at the bedside that need research. But most of the time we don’t perceive ourselves as scientists and that we have the ability to bring their ideas to our internal groups — like the Nursing Research Practice Council or someone at the School of Nursing.

Nursing leadership needs to be cultivating that understanding with the nurse at the bedside or in the clinic and help those nurses take an idea and grow it into a research project. We need to mentor and coach those nurses, and that is a big priority for me in the upcoming year.

Evidence-based nursing research is a rapidly growing field. Why now?

Evidence-based nursing research has taken off over the past few years because there is a groundswell of interest by communities and the government as it relates to care of patient populations. That’s where nursing spends its time. Nursing is focused on caring for people. And with the Affordable Care Act, we are now very focused on prevention. That’s nursing’s wheelhouse.

What topics are nurses researching?

The way nurses are involved in research is two-fold. Pure nursing research looks at practice and ways to improve nursing activities, interventions or approaches to education that enhance professional practice. Examples of this could be looking at hospital-acquired infections, central line infections or pressure ulcers that patients get when lying down for long periods of time. 

The other type of research is using their expertise as a nurse and participating with an intra-professional group of people around a patient population, an illness or an injury. An example of this is studying the way that a team works together to resuscitate a patient during a code blue [emergency].

How does nursing research benefit patients and the health care field?

Research can help reduce the length of stay in hospitals and costs as well as improve patient outcomes. It also helps maintain normalcy for the patient. For example, for patients experiencing delirium, nursing research led to a survey tool to assess patients and inform our practice.  Another study looked at ways we can help improve sleep in the hospital because sleep is restorative.

The UCLA School of Nursing has a strong research foundation. How you are collaborating with UCLA Health?

We want to bring the strengths of both the School of Nursing and UCLA Health together and promote nursing. We want to bring ideas from the medical center and work with the academic side to help us design research projects that will ultimately promote better care. We also want to get nurse-practitioner students into clinics across UCLA Health. We have over 160 clinics that could really benefit from understanding the role that NPs play in their practice.

What is the future of nursing research?

There are hip, trendy things going on across health care, and we should be leading that. We need to find ways to partner with the people we care for and the people who care with us, whether it be at the bedside, in the clinic or in the community. If we stay true to our roots, nursing’s role is to advocate for our patients, especially vulnerable populations and people who cannot speak for themselves. It centers on ensuring that care is coordinated. We should be using the knowledge of our environment and the people we serve for our research ideas.

Top UCLA News

Adults who had difficult childhoods are not receiving sufficient mental health care

Downsizing local news contributes to crumbling infrastructure

Kaya Mentesoglu’s technological creativity helps UCLA map its global impact

Women’s water polo team wins NCAA title, completing perfect season

Stay connected.

Get top research & news headlines four days a week.

(Check your inbox or spam filter for confirmation.)

Subscribe to a UCLA Newsroom RSS feed and our story headlines will be automatically delivered to your news reader.

• UCLA on Twitter
• UCLA on Facebook
• UCLA on LinkedIn
• @UCLA on Instagram
• UCLA on YouTube

Why Nursing Research Matters

Affiliation.

• 1 Author Affiliation: Director, Magnet Recognition Program®, American Nurses Credentialing Center, Silver Spring, Maryland.
• PMID: 33882548
• DOI: 10.1097/NNA.0000000000001005

Increasingly, nursing research is considered essential to the achievement of high-quality patient care and outcomes. In this month's Magnet® Perspectives column, we examine the origins of nursing research, its role in creating the Magnet Recognition Program®, and why a culture of clinical inquiry matters for nurses. This column explores how Magnet hospitals have built upon the foundation of seminal research to advance contemporary standards that address some of the challenges faced by healthcare organizations around the world. We offer strategies for nursing leaders to develop robust research-oriented programs in their organizations.

Copyright © 2021 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.

• Credentialing / standards
• Hospitals / standards*
• Leadership*
• Nursing Research / standards*
• Nursing Service, Hospital / standards*
• Nursing Staff, Hospital / standards*
• Organizational Culture
• Quality of Health Care / standards
• United States

The power of nurses in research: understanding what matters and driving change

The next blog in our series focussing on how research evidence can be implemented into practice, Julie Bayley, Director of the Lincoln Impact Literacy Institute writes about the power of nurses in research and how nurses can support the whole research journey. 

Research is a funny old beast isn’t it? It starts life as a glint in a researcher’s eye, then like a child needs nurturing, shuttling back and forth to events and usually requires constant checking to make sure it’s not doing something stupid.

As someone who spends the majority of their working life on impact – the provable benefits of research outside of the world of academia – it is extraordinarily clear to me how research can make the world better. And as a patient advocate – having chronically and not exactly willingly collected DVTs over the last decade – it’s even more clear how good research and good care together make a difference that matters.

Having had some AMAZING care, nursing strikes me as both an art and a science. A brilliant technical understanding of healthcare processes combined magically with kindness, compassion and care.  Having been hugged by nurses as I cried being separated from my newborn (post DVT), and watching nurses let dad happily talk them through his army photo album as they check on his dementia, I am in no doubt that such compassion is what marks the difference between not just being a patient, but being a person .

One of the oddities about research is how we can so often get the impression that only big and shiny counts. ‘Superpower’ studies such as Randomised Controlled Trials, and multi-national patient cohort studies are amazing, but can mask the breadth of the millions of questions research can explore in endless different ways. Of course we need trials to determine ‘what works’, but we also need research to unveil the stories of those who feel their rarely heard, understand how things work, and connect research to people’s lives.

Research essentially is just the act of questioning in a structured, ethical and transparent way. It might seek to understand things through numbers (quantitative) or words and experiences (qualitative), and may reveal something new or confirm something we already believe. Research is the bedrock of evidence based care, allowing us – either through new (‘primary’) or existing (‘secondary’) data – to explore, understand, confirm or disprove ways patients can be helped. Some of you reading this will be very research active, some of you might think it’s not for you, some may not know where to start, and others may hate the idea altogether. Let’s face it, healthcare is an extremely pressured environment, so why would you add research into an already busy day job? The simple truth is that research gives us a way to add to this care magic, helping to ensure care pathways are the best, safest and most appropriate in every situation.

The pace and scale of research stories can make it easy to presume research is something ‘other people’ do, and whilst there are many brilliant professionals and professions within healthcare, nurses have a unique and phenomenally important place in research in at least three key ways:

• Understanding what matters to patients. A person is far more than their illness, and being so integral to day to day care, nurses have a lens not only on patients’ conditions, but how these interweave with concerns about their life, their livelihood, their loved ones and all else. And it is in this mix that the fuller impact of research can be really understood, way beyond clinical outcome measures, and into what it what matters .
• Understanding how to mobilise and implement new knowledge. Even if new research shows promise, the act of implementing it in a pressured healthcare system can be immensely challenging. Nurses are paramount for understanding – amongst many other things – how patients will engage (or not), what can be integrated into care pathways (or can’t), what unintended consequences could be foreseen and what (if any) added pressures new processes will bring for staff. This depth of insight borne from both experience and expertise is vital to mobilising, translating and otherwise ‘converting’ research promise into reality.
• Driving research . Nurses of course also drive research of all shapes and sizes. Numerous journals, such as BMC Nursing and the Journal of Research in Nursing bear testament to the wealth of research insights driven by nurses, and shared widely to inform practice.

Research isn’t owned by any single profession, or defined by any size. Whatever methods, scale or theories we use, research is the act of understanding, and if nurses aren’t at the heart of understanding the patient experience and the healthcare system, I don’t know who is. So when it comes to research:

• Recognise the value you already bring. You are front and centre in care which gives you a perspective on patient and system need that few others have. Ask yourself, what matters?
• Recognise the sheer breadth of research possibilities, and the million questions it hasn’t yet been used to answer. Ask yourself, what needs to be understood?
• Use – or develop – your skills to do research. Connect with researchers, read up, or just get involved. Ask yourself, how can I make my research mark?

Research is important because people are important. If you’re nearer the research-avoidant than the research-lead end of the spectrum, I’d absolutely urge you to get more involved. Whether you shine a light on problems research could address, critically inform the implementation of research, or do the research yourself….

….from this patient and research impact geek…

Comment and Opinion | Open Debate

The views and opinions expressed on this site are solely those of the original authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of BMJ and should not be used to replace medical advice. Please see our full website terms and conditions .

All BMJ blog posts are posted under a CC-BY-NC licence

BMJ Journals

Nursing Research

Nursing research worldwide is committed to rigorous scientific inquiry that provides a significant body of knowledge to advance nursing practice, shape health policy, and impact the health of people in all countries. The vision for nursing research is driven by the profession's mandate to society to optimize the health and well-being of populations (American Nurses Association, 2003; International Council of Nurses, 1999). Nurse researchers bring a holistic perspective to studying individuals, families, and communities involving a biobehavioral, interdisciplinary, and translational approach to science. The priorities for nursing research reflect nursing's commitment to the promotion of health and healthy lifestyles, the advancement of quality and excellence in health care, and the critical importance of basing professional nursing practice on research.

As one of the world leaders in nursing research, it is important to delineate the position of the academic leaders in the U.S. on research advancement and facilitation, as signified by the membership of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN). In order to enhance the science of the discipline and facilitate nursing research, several factors need to be understood separately and in interaction: the vision and importance of nursing research as a scientific basis for the health of the public; the scope of nursing research; the cultural environment and workforce required for cutting edge and high-impact nursing research; the importance of a research intensive environment for faculty and students; and the challenges and opportunities impacting the research mission of the discipline and profession.

Approved by AACN Membership: October 26, 1998 Revisions Approved by the Membership: March 15, 1999 and March 13, 2006

Log in using your username and password

• Search More Search for this keyword Advanced search
• Latest content
• Current issue
• Write for Us
• BMJ Journals More You are viewing from: Google Indexer

You are here

• Volume 1, Issue 1

Nursing, research, and the evidence

• Article Text
• Article info
• Citation Tools
• Rapid Responses
• Article metrics

• Anne Mulhall , MSc, PhD
• Independent Training and Research Consultant West Cottage, Hook Hill Lane Woking, Surrey GU22 0PT, UK

https://doi.org/10.1136/ebn.1.1.4

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request permissions.

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

Why has research-based practice become so important and why is everyone talking about evidence-based health care? But most importantly, how is nursing best placed to maximise the benefits which evidence-based care can bring?

Part of the difficulty is that although nurses perceive research positively, 2 they either cannot access the information, or cannot judge the value of the studies which they find. 3 This journal has evolved as a direct response to the dilemma of practitioners who want to use research, but are thwarted by overwhelming clinical demands, an ever burgeoning research literature, and for many, a lack of skills in critical appraisal. Evidence-Based Nursing should therefore be exceptionally useful, and its target audience of practitioners is a refreshing move in the right direction. The worlds of researchers and practitioners have been separated by seemingly impenetrable barriers for too long. 4

Tiptoeing in the wake of the movement for evidence-based medicine, however, we must ensure that evidence-based nursing attends to what is important for nursing. Part of the difficulty that practitioners face relates to the ambiguity which research, and particularly “scientific” research, has within nursing. Ambiguous, because we need to be clear as to what nursing is, and what nurses do before we can identify the types of evidence needed to improve the effectiveness of patient care. Then we can explore the type of questions which practitioners need answers to and what sort of research might best provide those answers.

What is nursing about?

Increasingly, medicine and nursing are beginning to overlap. There is much talk of interprofessional training and multidisciplinary working, and nurses have been encouraged to adopt as their own some tasks traditionally undertaken by doctors. However, in their operation, practice, and culture, nursing and medicine remain quite different. The oft quoted suggestion is that doctors “cure” or “treat” and that nurses “care”, but this is not upheld by research. In a study of professional boundaries, the management of complex wounds was perceived by nurses as firmly within their domain. 5 Nurses justified their claim to “control” wound treatment by reference to scientific knowledge and practical experience, just as medicine justifies its claim in other areas of treatment. One of the most obvious distinctions between the professions in this study was the contrast between the continual presence of the nurse as opposed to the periodic appearance of the doctor. Lawler raises the same point, and suggests that nurses and patients are “captives” together. 6 Questioning the relevance of scientific knowledge, she argues that nurses and patients are “focused on more immediate concerns and on ways in which experiences can be endured and transcended”. This highlights the particular contribution of nursing, for it is not merely concerned with the body, but is also in an “intimate” and ongoing relationship with the person within the body. Thus nursing becomes concerned with “untidy” things such as emotions and feelings, which traditional natural and social sciences have difficulty accommodating. “It is about the interface between the biological and the social, as people reconcile the lived body with the object body in the experience of illness.” 7

What sort of evidence does nursing need?

These arguments suggest that nursing, through its particular relationship with patients and their sick or well bodies, will rely on many different ways of knowing and many different kinds of knowledge. Lawler's work on how the body is managed by nurses illustrates this. 6 She explains how an understanding of the physiological body is essential, but that this must be complemented by evidence from the social sciences because “we also practice with living, breathing, speaking humans.” Moreover, this must be grounded in experiential knowledge gained from being a nurse, and doing nursing. Knowledge, or evidence, for practice thus comes to us from a variety of disciplines, from particular paradigms or ways of “looking at” the world, and from our own professional and non-professional life experiences.

Picking the research design to fit the question

Scientists believe that the social world, just like the physical world, is orderly and rational, and thus it is possible to determine universal laws which can predict outcome. They propose the idea of an objective reality independent of the researcher, which can be measured quantitatively, and they are concerned with minimising bias. The other major paradigm is interpretism/naturalism which takes another approach, suggesting that a measurable and objective reality separate from the researcher does not exist; the researcher cannot therefore be separated from the “researched”. Thus who we are, what we are, and where we are will affect the sorts of questions we pose, and the way we collect and interpret data. Furthermore, in this paradigm, social life is not thought to be orderly and rational, knowledge of the world is relative and will change with time and place. Interpretism/naturalism is concerned with understanding situations and with studying things as they are. Research approaches in this paradigm try to capture the whole picture, rather than a small part of it.

This way of approaching research is very useful, especially to a discipline concerned with trying to understand the predicaments of patients and their relatives, who find themselves ill, recovering, or facing a lifetime of chronic illness or death. Questions which arise in these areas are less concerned with causation, treatment effectiveness, and economics and more with the meaning which situations have—why has this happened to me? What is my life going to be like from now on? The focus of these questions is on the process, not the outcome. Data about such issues are best obtained by interviews or participant observation. These are aspects of nursing which are less easily measured and quantified. Moreover, some aspects of nursing cannot even be formalised within the written word because they are perceived, or experienced, in an embodied way. For example, how do you record aspects of care such as trust, empathy, or “being there”? Can such aspects be captured within the confines of research as we know it?

Questions of causation, prognosis, and effectiveness are best answered using scientific methods. For example, rates of infection and thrombophlebitis are issues which concern nurses looking after intravenous cannulas. Therefore, nurses might want access to a randomised controlled trial of various ways in which cannula sites are cleansed and dressed to determine if this affects infection rates. Similarly, some very clear economic and organisational questions might be posed by nurses working in day surgery units. Is day surgery cost effective? What are the rates of early readmission to hospital? Other questions could include: what was it like for patients who had day surgery? Did nurses find this was a satisfying way to work? These would be better answered using interpretist approaches which focus on the meaning that different situations have for people. Nurses working with patients with senile dementia might also use this approach for questions such as how to keep these patients safe and yet ensure their right to freedom, or what it is like to live with a relative with senile dementia. Thus different questions require different research designs. No single design has precedence over another, rather the design chosen must fit the particular research question.

Research designs useful to nursing

Nursing presents a vast range of questions which straddle both the major paradigms, and it has therefore embraced an eclectic range of research designs and begun to explore the value of critical approaches and feminist methods in its research. 8 The current nursing literature contains a wide spectrum of research designs exemplified in this issue, ranging from randomised controlled trials, 9 and cohort studies, 10 at the scientific end of the spectrum, through to grounded theory, 11 ethnography, 12 and phenomenology at the interpretist/naturalistic end. 13 Future issues of this journal will explore these designs in depth.

Maximising the potential of evidence-based nursing

Evidence-based care concerns the incorporation of evidence from research, clinical expertise, and patient preferences into decisions about the health care of individual patients. 14 Most professionals seek to ensure that their care is effective, compassionate, and meets the needs of their patients. Therefore sound research evidence which tells us what does and does not work, and with whom and where it works best, is good news. Maximum use must be made of scientific and economic evidence, and the products of initiatives such as the Cochrane Collaboration. However, nurses and consumers of health care clearly need other evidence, arising from questions which cannot be framed in scientific or economic terms. Nursing could spark some insightful debate concerning the nature and contribution of other types of knowledge, such as clinical intuition, which are so important to practitioners. 15

In summary, in embracing evidence-based nursing we must heed these considerations:

Nursing must discard its suspicion of scientific, quantitative evidence, gather the skills to critique it, and design imaginative trials which will assist in improving many aspects of nursing

We must promulgate naturalistic/interpretist studies by indicating their usefulness and confirming/explaining their rigour in investigating the social world of health care

More research is needed into the reality and consequences of adopting evidence-based practice. Can practitioners act on the evidence, or are they being made responsible for activities beyond their control?

It must be emphasised that those concerns which are easily measured or articulated are not the only ones of importance in health care. Space is needed to recognise and explore the knowledge which comes from doing nursing and reflecting on it, to find new channels for speaking of concepts which are not easily accommodated within the discourse of social or natural science—hope, despair, misery, love.

• ↵ Bostrum J, Suter WN. Research utilisation: making the link with practice. J Nurs Staff Dev 1993 ; 9 : 28 –34. OpenUrl PubMed
• ↵ Lacey A. Facilitating research based practice by educational intervention. Nurs Educ Today 1996 ; 16 : 296 –301.
• ↵ Pearcey PA. Achieving research based nursing practice. J Adv Nurs 1995 ; 22 : 33 –9. OpenUrl CrossRef PubMed Web of Science
• ↵ Mulhall A. Nursing research: our world not theirs? J Adv Nurs 1997 ; 25 : 969 –76. OpenUrl CrossRef PubMed Web of Science
• ↵ Walby S, Greenwell J, Mackay L, et al. Medicine and nursing: professions in a changing health service . London: Sage, 1994.
• ↵ Lawler J. The body in nursing . Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone, 1997.
• ↵ Lawler J. Behind the screens nursing . Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone, 1991.
• ↵ Street AF. Inside nursing: a critical ethnography of clinical nursing practice . New York: State University Press of New York, 1992.
• ↵ Madge P, McColl J, Paton J. Impact of a nurse-led home management training programme in children admitted to hospital with acute asthma: a randomised controlled study. Thorax 1997 ; 52 : 223 –8. OpenUrl Abstract
• ↵ Kushi LH, Fee RM, Folsom AR, et al . Physical activity and mortality in postmenopausal women. JAMA 1997 ; 277 : 1287 –92. OpenUrl CrossRef PubMed Web of Science
• ↵ Rogan F, Shmied V, Barclay L, et al . Becoming a mother: developing a new theory of early motherhood. J Adv Nurs 1997 ; 25 : 877 –85. OpenUrl CrossRef PubMed Web of Science
• ↵ Barroso J. Reconstructing my life: becoming a long-term survivor of AIDS. Qual Health Res 1997 ; 7 : 57 –74. OpenUrl CrossRef Web of Science
• ↵ Thibodeau J, MacRae J. Breast cancer survival: a phenomenological inquiry. Adv Nurs Sci 1997 ; 19 : 65 –74. OpenUrl PubMed
• ↵ Sackett D, Haynes RB. On the need for evidence-based medicine . Evidence-Based Medicine 1995 ; 1 : 5 –6. OpenUrl Abstract / FREE Full Text
• ↵ Gordon DR Tenacious assumptions in Western biomedicine. In: Lock M, Gordon DR , eds . Biomedicine Examined. London: Kluwer Academic Press, 1988;19–56.

Read the full text or download the PDF:

Nurse Researcher Career Overview

NurseJournal.org is committed to delivering content that is objective and actionable. To that end, we have built a network of industry professionals across higher education to review our content and ensure we are providing the most helpful information to our readers.

Drawing on their firsthand industry expertise, our Integrity Network members serve as an additional step in our editing process, helping us confirm our content is accurate and up to date. These contributors:

• Suggest changes to inaccurate or misleading information.
• Provide specific, corrective feedback.
• Identify critical information that writers may have missed.

Integrity Network members typically work full time in their industry profession and review content for NurseJournal.org as a side project. All Integrity Network members are paid members of the Red Ventures Education Integrity Network.

Explore our full list of Integrity Network members.

Are you ready to earn your online nursing degree?

how long to become

Job outlook, average earning potential, what does a nurse researcher do.

Nurse researcher jobs involve designing and carrying out research studies, either through new data that they create or from existing research. The following is a list of nurse researcher responsibilities:

Primary Responsibilities

• Designing nursing research studies
• Carrying out research
• Documenting that their research protects any human or animal subjects involved
• Publishing findings in peer-reviewed journals or books
• Presenting at conferences
• Keeping up with professional literature

Career Traits

• Strengths in analysis, observation, and written communication
• Ethical in publishing studies and the treatment of human or animal subjects

Credit: JGI/Tom Grill / Getty Images

Where Do Nurse Researchers Work?

Nurse researchers work in academic medical centers, government agencies, and other healthcare providers.

Academic Medical Centers

Nurse researchers in academic medical centers conduct research, publish results, and teach undergraduate or graduate students.

Government Agencies

In government agencies, these professionals perform research, share findings, and publish results internally or externally.

Nurse researchers working in publishing select articles for publication, review methodology and validity, and edit articles in collaboration with authors.

Why Should I Become a Nurse Researcher?

Research nurse jobs add to professional knowledge and help nurses to do their jobs with evidence-based research, improving healthcare outcomes. Nursing research doesn’t include the same physical demands as clinical nursing and offers more predictable schedules. However, nurse research jobs typically do not pay as much as clinical nursing roles.

Advantages To Becoming a Nurse Researcher

Disadvantages to becoming a nurse researcher, how to become a nurse researcher.

Becoming a nurse researcher requires developing skills in research methodology, informatics, statistics, and nursing itself.

Graduate with a bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) or an associate degree in nursing (ADN).

Pass the nclex-rn exam to receive registered nurse (rn) licensure., begin research., apply to an accredited msn, doctor of nursing practice (dnp), or doctor of philosophy in nursing (ph.d.) program., earn an msn, dnp, or ph.d., apply for certification., how much do nurse researchers make.

The annual median research nurse salary is $81,500 . Generally, nurse researchers with doctoral degrees earn more than those with master’s-level education. Some research nurse professionals in academia qualify for tenure. In general, clinical research associates earn a median salary of $66,930 , while certified clinical research professionals earn an average salary of $72,430 . However, because of the RN credential, nurse researchers with these certifications generally earn above the average or median for those positions.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take to become a nurse researcher.

Nurse researcher careers require a significant time investment. It takes at least six years of education to earn an MSN and seven years for a doctorate. In addition, most MSN and doctoral programs require at least two years of experience as an RN.

Why is nursing research important?

Nursing research finds the most effective approaches to nursing and improves the outcomes for nurses, patients, and healthcare organizations. It builds the body of knowledge for nurse education.

What are some examples of responsibilities nurse researchers may have?

Professional responsibilities include protecting human or animal subjects in their research, designing studies that produce valid results, accurately reporting results, and sharing findings through publishing.

What opportunities for advancement are available to nurse researchers?

Research nurse jobs offer opportunities for advancement in the academic or research field, such as becoming primary investigator on studies of increasing scope and importance, advancement in administration, or receiving tenure as a professor or college instructor.

Resources for Nurse Researchers

International association of clinical research nurses, national institute of nursing research, the association of clinical research professionals, society of clinical research associates, related pages.

The Best ADN-to-MSN (RN-to-NP) Bridge Programs 2024

ADN-to-MSN bridge programs allow RNs to bypass BSN programs and earn a graduate degree. Discover the top ADN-to-MSN programs.

Online RN-to-DNP Programs

Accelerate your career by earning the highest level of education in nursing through an RN-to-DNP bridge program.

The 20 Best Nursing Career Specialties Based On Salary

Interested in nursing, but unsure which career track is best for you? This guide describes the 20 best nursing career specialties and how to get started in these fields.

Jobs for Nurses: 50+ Different Nursing Positions

What can you do with a nursing degree? Explore what nurses do and the different nursing jobs available to licensed nurses.

Reviewed by:

Nicole Galan, RN, MSN

Nicole Galan is a registered nurse who earned a master’s degree in nursing education from Capella University and currently works as a full-time freelance writer. Throughout her nursing career, Galan worked in a general medical/surgical care unit and then in infertility care. She has also worked for over 13 years as a freelance writer specializing in consumer health sites and educational materials for nursing students.

Galan is a paid member of our Healthcare Review Partner Network. Learn more about our review partners .

Whether you’re looking to get your pre-licensure degree or taking the next step in your career, the education you need could be more affordable than you think. Find the right nursing program for you.

You might be interested in

HESI vs. TEAS Exam: The Differences Explained

Nursing schools use entrance exams to make admissions decisions. Learn about the differences between the HESI vs. TEAS exams.

10 Nursing Schools That Don’t Require TEAS or HESI Exam

For Chiefs’ RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire, Nursing Runs in the Family

An official website of the United States government

Here's how you know

Official websites use .gov A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS A lock ( Lock Locked padlock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

• Research Initiatives
• Meet Our Researchers
• Meet Our Program Officers
• RESEARCH LENSES
• Health Equity
• Social Determinants of Health
• Population and Community Health
• Prevention and Health Promotion
• Systems and Models of Care
• Funding Opportunities
• Small Business Funding
• Grant Applicant Resources
• Training Grants

Featured Research

• Strategic Plan
• Budget and Legislation
• Connect With Us
• Jobs at NINR

The National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) leads nursing research to solve pressing health challenges and inform practice and policy - optimizing health and advancing health equity into the future.

NINR prioritizes research framed through five lenses

NINR identified five complementary and synergistic research lenses that best leverage the strengths of nursing research and promote multilevel approaches, cross-disciplinary and -sectoral collaboration, and community engagement in research. The research lenses are:

Impact of NINR Research

NINR-supported researchers explore and address some of the most important challenges affecting the health of the American people.

Learn about accomplishments from the community of NINR-supported scientists across the United States.

Funded Grants and Resources

Technical and financial support for the development of new and innovative products and services in support of NINR's mission.

NINR Events

View a list of upcoming and past NINR symposia, conferences, lectures, and other events.

Previous Initiatives

Read about previous NINR programs and initiatives.

Get Involved

It’s our unique perspective that forms the foundation of nursing research and what we do at NINR, and makes our scientific discipline so well positioned to lead through innovations and discoveries that span multiple levels and across sectors to optimize health for all. Join us!

Research Funding Opportunities

NINR offers grants to individuals at all points in their careers, from early investigators to established scientists. NINR grants also support small businesses and research centers.

Training Funding Opportunities

View training mechanisms supported by NINR.

Job Opportunities

View current NINR job openings.

• U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

• Virtual Tour
• Staff Directory
• En Español

You are here

The nih almanac, national institute of nursing research (ninr).

• Important Events
• Legislative Chronology

The National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) leads nursing research to solve pressing health challenges and inform practice and policy - optimizing health and advancing health equity into the future.

The 2022-2026 NINR Strategic Plan: An Overview

NINR’s strategic plan includes a research framework that takes advantage of what makes the Institute unique by focusing on a holistic, contextualized approach to optimizing health for all people, rather than on specific diseases, life stages, or research topics. The framework encourages research that informs practice and policy, and improves health and quality of life for all people, their families and communities, and the society in which they live.

The framework builds on the strengths of nursing research, spans the intersection of health care and public health, and encompasses the clinical and community settings where nurses engage in prevention, treatment, and care—including hospitals and clinics, schools and workplaces, homes and long-term care facilities, justice settings, and throughout the community.

NINR’s research framework includes five complementary and synergistic research lenses that best leverage the strengths of nursing research and promote multilevel approaches, cross-disciplinary and -sectoral collaboration, and community engagement in research. The research lenses are: 

• Health Equity
• Social Determinants of Health
• Population and Community Health
• Prevention and Health Promotion
• Systems and Models of Care

The Plan is intended to be a living document, one which can be adapted as new opportunities and challenges arise.

Important Events in NINR History

November 20, 1985  — Public Law 99-158, the Health Research Extension Act of 1985, becomes law. Among other provisions, the law authorizes the National Center for Nursing Research (NCNR) to support research and training related to patient care at NIH.

April 18, 1986  — The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary announces the establishment of NCNR at NIH.

April 1986–June 1987  — Dr. Doris Merritt, Special Assistant to the NIH Director, is appointed Acting Director of NCNR. NCNR’s initial budget is $16 million.

June 1987–June 1994  — Dr. Ada Sue Hinshaw serves as the first Director of NCNR.

June 10, 1993  — P.L. 103-43, the NIH Revitalization Act of 1993, becomes law. Among other provisions, it elevates NCNR to an NIH Institute. As such, NCNR is re-designated the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR).

July 1994–April 1995  — Dr. Suzanne Hurd serves as Acting Director of NINR.

April 3, 1995  — Dr. Patricia A. Grady is appointed Director of NINR.

Summer 2000  — NINR holds the first Summer Genetics Institute.

April 2002  — NINR launches a free online training, "Developing Nurse Scientists" for students interested in the nursing research field.

2004  — NINR launches a new pilot training project, the Graduate Partnerships Program in Biobehavioral Research.

December 2004  — NINR co-sponsors the NIH State-of-the-Science conference, Improving End-of-Life Care, bringing together almost 1,000 health care practitioners from around the world.

2005–2006  — NINR celebrates its 20th anniversary at NIH.

2009  — Using the unprecedented additional funding made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), NINR supports an additional $36 million in research in fiscal year 2009–2010. Projects supported under ARRA include a new research cooperative for palliative care science and multiple training opportunities to build the scientific workforce. Approximately 73 additional research grants are supported, along with multiple research and training supplements.

2010  — NINR holds its first Methodologies Boot Camp, which focuses on pain research.

2010  — U.S. Senate resolution, S. Res. 642, congratulates NINR on a quarter century of achievement in science and public service. The resolution is introduced by Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and co-sponsored by Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine).

2010–2011  — NINR celebrates its 25th anniversary at NIH with a series of scientific events.

2011  — NINR launches a new NINR Director's Lecture series, designed to bring the nation’s top nurse scientists to the NIH campus to share their work and interests with a transdisciplinary audience. Dr. Bernadette Melnyk presents the inaugural lecture on “COPE: Improving Outcomes for Premature Infants and Parents.”

August 11–12, 2011  — NINR convenes a national summit on “The Science of Compassion: Future Directions in End-of-Life and Palliative Care,” attended by nearly 1,000 scientists, health care professionals, and public advocates.

October 13, 2011  —  Bringing Science to Life: NINR Strategic Plan is released at NINR's 25th Anniversary Concluding Symposium.

January 2014  — NINR launches the Palliative Care: Conversations Matter® campaign, which aims to increase the use of palliative care for children living with a serious illness. The campaign is initiated to raise awareness of and improve communication about pediatric palliative care.

2015–2016  — NINR marks its 30th anniversary at NIH with a series of scientific events including the “Advancing Science, Improving Lives” scientific symposium.

September 2016 — NINR releases its new Strategic Plan, "Advancing Science, Improving Lives: A Vision for Nursing Science." The blueprint for the Plan grew from the Institute’s 2011 Strategic Plan, past scientific accomplishments, and current research priorities.

August 2017 — NINR and its partners host “The Science of Caregiving: Bringing Voices Together” Summit. The Summit provides perspectives across the spectrum of caregiving, including the importance of caregiving across the lifespan as well as current and future directions for research to improve the health of patients and caregivers. 

August 31, 2018 — After 23 years of service, Dr. Patricia A. Grady retires as director of NINR.

September 2018–September 2019 — Dr. Ann Cashion serves as Acting Director of NINR. On September 30, 2019, Dr. Cashion retires from federal service.

October 2019 to December 2019 — Dr. Lawrence Tabak serves as Acting Director of NINR.    

January 2020 to September 2020 — Dr. Tara Schwetz serves as Acting Director of NINR.    

September 14, 2020 — Dr. Shannon Zenk becomes Director of NINR.

May 2022 – The Institute releases the NINR 2022-2026 Strategic Plan. This plan outlines the Institute's vision for supporting science that advances our mission: to lead nursing research to solve pressing health challenges and inform practice and policy-optimizing health and advancing health equity into the future.

November 2022 – NINR hosts a workshop “Firearm Injury Prevention: State of the Science and the Potential of Nurse-Led Research” to explore how nurse scientists and nursing research can contribute to firearm injury prevention. The workshop includes an examination of current research in various disciplines, with the goal of developing a research trajectory that advances nursing knowledge, practice, and policy related to firearm injury prevention.

2022-2023 – Dr. Zenk participates in the Implementing a Maternal health and PRegnancy Outcomes Vision for Everyone (IMPROVE) Initiative, the NIH-wide Social Determinants of Health Research Coordinating Committee (SDOH RCC), and the NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative.

NINR Legislative Chronology

November 10, 1985 — Public Law 99-158, the Health and Research Extension Act of 1985, becomes law. Among other provisions, the law authorizes the National Center for Nursing Research (NCNR) to support research and research training related to patient care at NIH.

1986 — A series of continuing resolutions (P.L. 99-500, P.L. 99-599) establishes NCNR as a separate NIH appropriation.

June 10, 1993 — P.L. 103-43, the NIH Revitalization Act of 1993, becomes law. Among other provisions, it elevates NCNR to a NIH Institute. As such, NCNR is re-designated the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR).

2010 — U.S. Senate resolution, S. Res. 642, congratulates NINR on a quarter century of achievement in science and public service. The resolution is introduced by Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and cosponsored by Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine).

Biographical Sketch of NINR Director Shannon N. Zenk, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN

Shannon N. Zenk, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN is the Director of the National Institute of Nursing Research.

Dr. Zenk was previously a Nursing Collegiate Professor in the Department of Population Health Nursing Science at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) College of Nursing, and a fellow at the UIC Institute for Health Research and Policy.

Dr. Zenk was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing in 2013, received the President’s Award from the Friends of the National Institute of Nursing Research in 2018, and was inducted into the International Nurse Researchers Hall of Fame in 2019. She has spent time as a visiting scholar in Rwanda and Australia. She earned her bachelor’s in nursing, magna cum laude, from Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington; her master’s degrees in public health nursing and community health sciences from UIC; and her doctorate in health behavior and health education from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her predoctoral training was in psychosocial factors in mental health and illness, funded by the the National Institute of Mental Health. Her dissertation examined racial and socioeconomic inequities in food access in metropolitan Detroit. She completed postdoctoral training in UIC’s Institute for Health Research and Policy’s Cancer Education and Career Development Program, funded by the National Cancer Institute, in 2006.

Dr. Zenk’s own research focuses on social inequities and health with a goal of identifying effective, multilevel approaches to improve health and eliminate racial/ethnic and socioeconomic health disparities. Her research portfolio has included NIH-supported work into urban food environments, community health solutions and veterans’ health. Through pioneering research on the built environment and food deserts, Dr. Zenk and her colleagues increased national attention to the problem of inadequate access to healthful foods in low-income and Black neighborhoods. They have since examined the role of community environments in health and health disparities. 

Recognizing that restricting empirical attention to the communities where people live and not the other communities where they spend time may misdirect interventions, Dr. Zenk led early research adopting GPS tracking to study broader “activity space” environments in relation to health behaviors. She and her colleagues have also evaluated whether the effectiveness of behavioral interventions differs depending on environmental context and, most recently, how environmental and personal factors interact to affect health. This work has leveraged a variety of technologies and emerging data resources such as electronic health records. Energy balance-related behaviors and conditions have been a major focus.

NINR Directors

Major programs.

Division of Extramural Science Programs  

The Division of Extramural Science Programs (DESP) serves NINR’s extramural research community and NINR by overseeing policy and management for grants and contracts to support NINR research and training at institutions across the United States. NINR offers a range of research funding and training opportunities. 

Division of Intramural Research

NINR's intramural research program conducts science that complements NINR's overall research mission, while leveraging resources unique to the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland.

The intramural research program is currently focused on increasing its efforts in research that integrate a multilevel understanding of the impact of health determinants, from the community level to the laboratory bench, with areas such as community-based, multilevel, and translational research. Like the rest of NINR's research portfolio, this approach to science takes advantage of nursing science's unique ability to address people's lives and living conditions to improve health and health equity.

National Advisory Council for Nursing Research

The National Advisory Council for Nursing Research provides a second level of review of grant applications, and recommends to the Institute Director which applications should be approved and considered for funding. These recommendations are based not only on considerations of scientific merit, but also on the relevance of the proposed project to NINR’s programs and priorities. Funding decisions are ultimately made by the Institute. In addition, the Council reviews the Institute’s extramural programs and also makes recommendations about its intramural research activities.

Partnerships and Initiatives

NINR plays an active role in several initiatives, including the:

• Community Partnerships to Advance Science for Society (ComPASS) - ComPASS aims to catalyze, deploy, and evaluate community-led health equity structural interventions that leverage partnerships across multiple sectors to reduce health disparities.
• Transformative Health Disparities Research Program - NINR is co-leading NIH’s Common Fund Transformative Research to Address Health Disparities and Advance Health Equity initiative, which is supporting innovative, translational research projects to prevent, reduce, or eliminate health disparities and advance health equity.
• NIH-Wide Social Determinants of Health Research Coordinating Committee (SDOH RCC) - NINR is co-chairing an NIH-wide SDOH RCC. The goal of the committee is to accelerate SDOH research across NIH and across diseases and conditions, populations, life course, and SDOH domains.
• Implementing a Maternal Health and Pregnancy Outcomes Vision for Everyone Initiative (IMPROVE) - NINR is a co-chair of the NIH IMPROVE initiative to address high rates of maternal morbidity and mortality in the United States. It includes a special emphasis on health disparities and populations that are disproportionately affected.
• Climate Change and Health Initiative (CCHI)- NINR is on the executive committee for the NIH-wide CCHI. CCHI is an urgent, cross-cutting NIH effort to reduce health threats from climate change across the lifespan and to build health resilience in individuals, communities, and nations around the world, especially among those at highest risk.
• Helping to End Addiction Long-term Initiative (HEAL) - NINR is supporting the HEAL initiative, an effort to enhance evidence and evidence-based solutions to address the national opioid public health crisis. Through this initiative NINR is funding research to understand, manage, and treat pain. As part of the NIH HEAL Initiative to speed scientific solutions for the national opioid public health crisis, NINR participates in the Pragmatic and Implementation Studies for the Management of Pain to Reduce Opioid Prescribing (PRISM) program.
• COVID Social Behavioral, And Economic Initiative (SBE) - NINR has a leadership role in NIH’s SBE Initiative on the Health Impacts of COVID-19, which includes 21 NIH Institutes and Centers that have pooled funds to support this initiative. As part of the COVID SBE initiative, NINR has supported 11 grants focused on data science and intervention research.

For more information about NINR, please visit the NINR website at: www.ninr.nih.gov .

This page last reviewed on June 30, 2023

Connect with Us

• More Social Media from NIH

Home / Nursing Careers & Specialties / Research Nurse

Research Nurse

What does a research nurse do, becoming a research nurse, where do research nurses work, research nurse salary & employment, helpful organizations, societies, and agencies.

What Is a Research Nurse?

Research nurses conduct scientific research into various aspects of health, including illnesses, treatment plans, pharmaceuticals and healthcare methods, with the ultimate goals of improving healthcare services and patient outcomes. Also known as nurse researchers, research nurses design and implement scientific studies, analyze data and report their findings to other nurses, doctors and medical researchers. A career path that requires an advanced degree and additional training in research methodology and tools, research nurses play a critical role in developing new, potentially life-saving medical treatments and practices.

A highly specialized career path, becoming a nurse researcher requires an advanced degree and training in informatics and research methodology and tools. Often, research nurses enter the field as research assistants or clinical research coordinators. The first step for these individuals, or for any aspiring advanced practice nurse, is to earn a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree and pass the NCLEX-RN exam. Once a nurse has completed their degree and attained an RN license, the next step in becoming a research nurse is to complete a Master's of Science in Nursing program with a focus on research and writing. MSN-level courses best prepare nurses for a career in research, and usually include coursework in statistics, research for evidence-based practice, design and coordination of clinical trials, and advanced research methodology.

A typical job posting for a research nurse position would likely include the following qualifications, among others specific to the type of employer and location:

• MSN degree and valid RN license
• Experience conducting clinical research, including enrolling patients in research studies, implementing research protocol and presenting findings
• Excellent attention to detail required in collecting and analyzing data
• Strong written and verbal communication skills for interacting with patients and reporting research findings
• Experience in grant writing a plus

To search and apply for current nurse researcher positions, visit our job boards .

What Are the Education Requirements for Research Nurses?

The majority of nurse researchers have an advanced nursing degree, usually an MSN and occasionally a PhD in Nursing . In addition to earning an RN license, research nurses need to obtain specialized training in informatics, data collection, scientific research and research equipment as well as experience writing grant proposals, research reports and scholarly articles. Earning a PhD is optional for most positions as a research nurse, but might be required to conduct certain types of research.

Are Any Certifications or Credentials Needed?

Aside from a higher nursing degree, such as an MSN or PhD in Nursing, and an active RN license, additional certifications are often not required for work as a research nurse. However, some nurse researcher positions prefer candidates who have earned the Certified Clinical Research Professional (CCRP) certification offered by the Society for Clinical Research Associates . In order to be eligible for this certification, candidates must have a minimum of two years' experience working in clinical research. The Association of Clinical Research Professionals also offers several certifications in clinical research, including the Clinical Research Associate Certification, the Clinical Research Coordinator Certification and the Association of Clinical Research Professionals – Certified Professional Credential. These certifications have varying eligibility requirements but generally include a number of hours of professional experience in clinical research and an active RN license.

Nurse researchers work in a variety of settings, including:

• Medical research organizations
• Research laboratories
• Universities
• Pharmaceutical companies

A research nurse studies various aspects of the healthcare industry with the ultimate goal of improving patient outcomes. Nurse researchers have specialized knowledge of informatics, scientific research and data collection and analysis, in addition to their standard nursing training and RN license. Nurse researchers often design their own studies, secure funding, implement their research and collect and analyze their findings. They may also assist in the recruitment of study participants and provide direct patient care for participants while conducting their research. Once a research project has been completed, nurse researchers report their findings to other nurses, doctors and medical researchers through written articles, research reports and/or industry speaking opportunities.

What Are the Roles and Duties of a Research Nurse?

• Design and implement research studies
• Observe patient care of treatment or procedures, and collect and analyze data, including managing databases
• Report findings of research, which may include presenting findings at industry conferences, meetings and other speaking engagements
• Write grant applications to secure funding for studies
• Write articles and research reports in nursing or medical professional journals or other publications
• Assist in the recruitment of participants for studies and provide direct patient care for participants

The Society of Clinical Research Associates reported a median salary for research nurses of $72,009 in their SoCRA 2015 Salary Survey , one of the highest-paying nursing specializations in the field. Salary levels for nurse researchers can vary based on the type of employer, geographic location and the nurse's education and experience level. Healthcare research is a growing field, so the career outlook is bright for RNs interested in pursuing an advanced degree and a career in research.

• National Institute of Nursing Research
• Council for the Advancement of Nursing Science
• International Association of Clinical Research Nurses
• Nurse Researcher Magazine

Related Articles

• 4 Short-Length Online and On-Campus BSN Programs to Enroll in for 2024-2025
• 10 Mistakes to Avoid When Selecting an MSN Program
• RN to BSN vs. Direct-Entry BSN: Which is Best For You?
• 10 Short-Length MSN Programs to Enroll in for 2024-2025
• Pros and Cons of the Direct-Entry MSN Program
• Do BSN-Educated Nurses Provide Better Patient Care?
• See all Nursing Articles

Internet Explorer is no longer supported by Microsoft. To browse the NIHR site please use a modern, secure browser like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Microsoft Edge.

The Role of the Clinical Research Nurse

Published: 17 May 2019

Version: 1.0 - June 2019

Clinical Research Nurses: In their own words

We spoke to nurses about their experience of working in this exciting space and the variety of roles our clinical research nurses undertake. All speak of having started their research careers with an uninformed view of what a research role could bring them.

All speak of their surprise at the autonomy of the role, the skills they have developed and the variety of work they undertake. All speak of working in great teams, the career opportunities that have opened for them and the importance of their relationships with the clinical research nursing community.

All speak of the challenges they have faced and overcome in research. And all speak of their passion for research. Most importantly they all speak of their crucial role in delivering high quality patient care. 

Here are their stories, in their own words.

Building Local Research

Anne Suttling, Senior Research Nurse, Portsmouth Hospitals Trust

After qualifying as a nurse, I commenced a rotation programme for 18 months. I worked in surgery, medicine, Accident and Emergency, critical care and also coronary care – where I gained a permanent post. That’s where my love is in coronary care and cardiology.

After seven years, I needed a change but still wanted to remain in cardiology. That’s when the opportunity to set up a research study came up. On the first day I was faced with an empty six – bedded bay, on an empty ward and told this was the available space to set up the clinic. The study was a success and on the back of this, the PI got funding for a full – time research nurse, to run interventional studies.

I remember the first complex commercial portfolio study I set up. Before I recruited my first patient I did not sleep the night before. I took home the packaging for all the bloods and biomarkers and had it all out in my living room … there was so much to get my head around. It did go ok – we became one of the top UK recruiters for the study. Because research in the department was working well, more PIs wanted to come on board. They could see research wasn’t such a demanding workload for them because research nurses were organising what they had to do and carrying out the study management.

I currently manage 17 staff in eight specialities. This brings its own challenges. A ward manager has one speciality on their ward and can see what is happening. In this role, you can’t be in renal, gastro and surgery if problems arise. So it’s slightly more difficult to manage. But I am learning so much about other specialities. I enjoy the patient contact and the patients really enjoy being in research. Patients have a hotline to consultants and any problems or issues they call the research nurse.

Our role is so diverse – it is not just recruiting patients. 

I go to monthly meetings with the industry manager. If a company want 8 sites in the UK, they will send out expression of interest forms. If they get 20 back, they will do site selection visits. We also get selected for commercial studies off the back of our success in recruiting to other studies … you start to build up a name for yourself. We also get selected for commercial studies off the back of our success in recruiting to other studies. You start to build up a name for yourself.

A clinical research nurse has a certain amount of autonomy. You have to be able to manage your own time, prioritise and pay attention to detail. Data queries can drive you insane, but that is what research is about. It is all recruit, recruit, but, what is the point if the data is not correct? Part of being a research nurse is having the determination to meet targets. Follow ups don’t necessarily count (as part of the target). You are under pressure to recruit but you still have to follow-up patients … that is what I find difficult. You are perceived to be successful if your recruitment figures are high. Follow up and maintaining consent throughout the trial is just as important – this is when the majority of data is collected.

Our role is so diverse – it is not just recruiting patients. There are follow-ups, collecting data for the CRFs, maintaining site files, knowing about the agencies, regulatory bodies, protocols, consent and giving presentations to inform colleagues about what we do in research.

Cardiology were nominated in 3 or 4 categories at the Portsmouth Hospitals Research Conference and won a “Research Merit Award”. This was in recognition of how we built up cardiology research over the last three years. In cardiology we are getting more PIs on board because they can see we are organised. The PIs are understanding that they don’t have to do all the work. They have a team of experienced research nurses to co-ordinate their trials.

Change Research Cultures

Alison Mortimer, Lead Nurse, NIHR Clinical Research Facility, Sheffield

I fell into research. I bumped into an old colleague on the stairs, she was working in research and had a job going. My first reaction was negative, as research was like a swear word and I hated anything to do with research in my training but I went away, did some reading and decided to apply. I was shocked when I actually got it. I had no idea what I was walking into.

I absolutely loved it. It was so fast-paced, the workload was immense but the patient benefit was amazing. I could see positive outcomes, but it wasn’t only that. I was working with the same patients for a year or longer and built up rapport with them, and they spoke to you about everything that was going on with them. I loved it.

For me research has the best mix of autonomy and teamwork. You manage your own caseload but good communication across the team is essential. I also love the element of surprise … on one occasion I came in to find an email saying we needed to pull all of the patients on one of our trials off the drug immediately. I love that fast-paced excitement, it makes you grateful for the rare moments you do get to sit down at your desk and answer a data query.

My main passion is thinking about how we can unite clinical and research nursing.

I moved into the Comprehensive Local Research Network (CLRN) in 2009. To me it felt like a completely new way of thinking. You were working across such a wide area and with acute and primary care organisations that weren’t at all geared up for research. We had to be flexible so we could be responsive to the different needs of the Trusts. We also had to be sensitive to the internal politics, we were perceived as outsiders. It took a lot of thought and time to ensure we didn’t mess that up. But it was definitely rewarding.

In my role I have responsibilities for the Clinical Research Facility, research nurses within the trust and the CLRN. After that first conversation on the stairs I would have laughed if you had said I would be in this position now. I think research is still a dirty word amongst nurses. The most common reaction is ‘why would you want to do that’. It’s mainly a misunderstanding of the role, research used to be an easy role that people took when they are coming up to retirement. Once that perception exists it is hard to change. My main passion is thinking about how we can unite clinical and research nursing.

One of my main struggles is getting buy in from matrons on the ward. A lot hate research because they feel keeping posts open while nurse go on research secondments depletes their staff. For ward matrons they have targets and certain expectations to make their ward high quality and forward thinking. They don’t realise that we are feeding into that. I think some of the tensions arise because clinical nurses don’t realise that patient welfare and good patient outcomes are as central to our work. We need to stop speaking our own research language, go back to our roots and speak the same language.

After the Francis Report, nurses developed the 6 Cs to guide nursing – Care, Communication, Compassion, Courage, Competency and Commitment. If you think about what a research nurse does these are as essential to us as they are to clinical nurses. We should use this as a common language to unite us.

Supporting Surgical Trials

Joyce Katebe Clinical Trials Nurse, Surgery/Gastroenterology

I am a Surgical Clinical Trials Nurse and I trained and qualified in Zambia. My research started during post basic nursing training, during my BSc Nursing. Research was not part of the pre-registration nursing diploma/certificate then, but it was a requirement for the completion of the BSc Nursing.

After this, I became interested in research and was encouraged as I worked with my lecturers. I helped with data collection which I found very interesting and thought it was something I would like to do more of in the future. I was fortunate to be involved in research for the World Health Organization (WHO) on family planning in Zambia, and this inspired me to want to do more and helped me to develop my own questions about improving nursing practices to improve patient care.

While working in a local teaching hospital, I helped come up with a proposal about teenage pregnancy and the provision of ante-natal clinics for them. It was noted that most of them were first seen in labour when they were admitted to give birth. This prompted me to ask about what services were available for these mothers. I thought I would use this project to help set up ante-natal clinics for teenagers.

In research I find that there are many opportunities to learn.

Having moved to the UK and having spent time working in the NHS, I applied for a position at the Oxford University Hospitals. It was my first research nurse role and I worked with an enthusiastic professor who was very keen to involve nurses in his research. Very exciting. There were always new studies and each of the studies had different research questions to answer.

In my role, I was required to attend research meetings as well as having regular meetings with the principal investigators. I really got a buzz from these meetings as I felt really involved in trying to improve health of patients for the future. I lived in Oxford during the week and went home to Bristol at the weekends. Family life was difficult because my family stayed behind in Bristol and could not relocate as the children felt settled in their schools in Bath and were not keen to move to Oxford.

Many people when they hear the word research think having a career in research is beyond them, but in research I find that there are many opportunities to learn different things. I applied for my current position in Bath to help set up a research unit in the department of General Surgery and Gastroenterology. I was the first research nurse recruited to work purely for the two units.

Initially, it was a challenge because I had to find my way around the system. With the help of the surgeons and colleagues from oncology clinical trials unit, I had to look for office space, desk and all the equipment needed. I had to ensure that everyone joining the unit had Good Clinical Practice training and I went around the wards meeting the different specialists and nurses to discuss the research we did in the unit and this was repeated as required.

It is important that I develop good working relations with non-research nurses because most of my patients are in their care. It also allows them opportunity to understand the research we are doing. I meet patients in pre-op assessment unit, wards and in outpatients. The majority of them are keen to participate in research, the phrase I hear a lot from patients is "I am doing this because I want to give something back to the NHS and community at large” and some say "If no one did this years back, we would not have the treatment we have today."

To hear these words from patients is very encouraging. Many people when they hear the word research think having a career in research is beyond them, but in research I find that there are many opportunities to learn different things as well as witnessing how research is improving lives.

Developing Nurses

Lisa Berry, Senior Research Nurse, NIHR Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility, Southampton

The desire to be a research nurse came from a passionate belief that healthcare needs to be evidence based. It combines all the things that I enjoy; law, ethics, clinical care and working in complete partnership with research participants. At times, healthcare can be paternalistic. Patients come to us unwell and we do things to make them better.

Whereas in research the balance of power shifts considerably, we cannot achieve medical advances without help from patients (research participants). We work with them to assess the efficacy and safety of novel therapies and there is no guarantee that participating in a research study will be of benefit to the participant. In research, the safety and wellbeing of our participants is at the centre of everything we do and the research nurse is crucial to supporting them through the whole process of taking part in research.

Research nurses bring a study to life.

There are a specific set of skills that a research nurse needs. All the skills you learn on the ward are transferable and it is essential to have a good clinical grounding. You also need to pay attention to detail, understand the principles and importance of informed consent and be extremely organised. You need to understand not only the science behind the protocol but what participation will entail for the patients/healthy volunteers taking part.

Our nurses need to have the confidence to act as an advocate for the participant and must remain clinically relevant. We specialise in experimental medicine and provide care to healthy volunteers and patients with a wide range of disease and conditions. It is possible that a participant could become very unwell during a trial and therefore it is essential that research nurses remain sufficiently engaged with their clinical training to act appropriately and quickly.

Part of my role is to ensure that researchers are allocated appropriate levels of support and that the studies are set-up in a timely, safe and efficient manner and that we deliver an excellent standard of clinical and research care. Research nurses bring a study to life; they make a huge contribution to advancing healthcare and are a valuable asset for any research team. I was a Health Care Assistant before qualifying as a nurse. Although I am passionate about research nursing, this is not enough to build a career. I would not have progressed as quickly to the role of Senior Research Sister without support, mentoring and developmental opportunities.

Since I started in research in 2006 I have seen more career opportunities. More training has become available and there is a greater understanding of what clinical research nursing is. Even I didn’t really know what research nursing was when I started. We try to encourage our nurses to consider all their development options. We facilitate academic development as needed and also strive to provide career opportunities. A few of our band 6 and 7 nurses have been very fortunate in obtaining MRes funding. The NIHR funds the course fees, salary and also backfill for their position. The NIHR fund one person to do a Masters degree in research, but really they are funding the development of two people because someone else can then act-up into a more senior role and is also developed.

Our aim is to ensure that research is fully embedded within healthcare at this hospital. All research nurses now wear a dark grey uniform. This has given us a very visible identity and it is exciting to see how integrated into and dispersed around the hospital we are. Suddenly people become very much aware of the research presence in every division.

Informed Consent

Arshiya Pereira, Research Nurse, Renal Transplant Department, Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

I was trained in India to become a nurse. My first placement was in renal dialysis. I was interested in learning more about renal because of its vast subject area; renal medicine, renal transplant, research, transplant clinic and dialysis.

The main aim was to get more knowledge and experience working in a specialised unit. After moving to the UK I worked on the renal ward and dialysis unit at Sunderland Royal Hospital. I moved to Manchester as I wanted to gain more knowledge and experience of transplant. Initially working in the renal transplant clinic conducting follow up I became aware of research and I was curious about the research studies my patients had been recruited to. When a vacancy in Renal Transplant Research was advertised I applied.

I was a bit apprehensive in taking the role initially as I had heard many people say you lose your clinical skills and you do not get to take care of the patients as you would on the ward. I realise that those assumptions are inaccurate. I get to spend more time with the patients and I have discussions about the research. What we do in research today may change the way we practice medicine in the future.

Every day is different in renal research.

We work with two different types of donors, live donor transplant and cadaveric donors. With live donor transplant we know when they are coming to us. With cadaveric donors we don’t know when we are going to get the kidney. So I have to organise myself on the day itself. Recruitment always takes priority. The first thing I do each day is check if there are any transplant operations and if there are, I see if the patients are eligible for my study, and recruit them if they are happy to take part.

At times I have found it difficult to get the Principal Investigator (PI) to consent the patients because they were either in surgery or clinic. I began to wonder whether it would be possible for me to conduct informed consent? At the same time, the Trust was undertaking a scoping exercise to assess the need for clinical staff who were not doctors to take informed consent and developed policies and procedures to support us to take on this role. This is a wonderful opportunity for clinical staff who were not doctors to extend their role. Initially the role was delegated by the Principal Investigator who had to justify the need for a clinical research nurse to take the informed consent for a specific study. 

The main aim was to get more knowledge and experience working in a specialised unit. A half day training programme was developed to gain more in depth knowledge of informed consent and group activities to explore the issues and processes involved. My competency in obtaining informed consent was assessed by the PI. I passed and felt really proud of myself.

To take consent I screen the patients’ eligibility and send information sheets two weeks prior to clinic visit, so they have time to read the information and speak to family. I also consult with the respective surgeon to see whether they are happy for their patient to be approached for the particular study. When the patient comes to clinic I discuss the study and if they are happy to take part, I make sure they are fully aware of what the study involves. In total, I have taken 20 informed consents so far, which has enabled the team to recruit to time and target.

I have now been working in research for over five years. I feel that due to the skills and expertise gained in particular informed consent my leadership qualities have improved significantly. I ensure the patient feels valued, they are followed closely from their pre-transplant appointment to their aftercare and they always remember me for the care I provide for them.

Ruth Hulbert, Lead Nurse, Kent and Medway Comprehensive Local Research Network

I came into the NIHR from the pharmaceutical industry, working with GSK and then Pfizer, I was used to an environment where money was no object and it wasn’t necessary to get people on board with the idea of research. The need to influence the right people in order to get research done was completely new to me.

Clinical research nursing is definitely not for the fainthearted. Most people get into nursing for the patient contact. You still have that but you also get other experiences like handling data, project managing and making direct approaches to very senior managers and consultants. You have to be proactive which can be difficult. The patients don’t come to you, you have to go out and find them.

When I began in the Cancer Research Network my personal worry was about approaching patients to join a study. It is an unusual position for a nurse, you are asking them to help you. The first patient I recruited was a lung cancer patient for an observational trial. He was very receptive which gave me the confidence going forward.

Clinical research nursing is definitely not for the fainthearted.

Clinical Research Nursing comes with a lot of autonomy, you don’t get that freedom in other areas of nursing. Nurses are in a much better position now in clinical research as there is a much clearer career structure. Most nurses come into our CLRN as a Band 5 with some nursing experience. Our goal is to develop them, and within a year to 18 months, most become Band 6s.

Training is passion of mine. I think there is a lot of satisfaction to be gained in passing on your knowledge and skills to people who are new and inexperienced. It is great when you see people growing and becoming a more confident and competent version of themselves. I am one of the Network’s Good Clinical Practice facilitators. At the last facilitators meeting it was announced that we had now trained 30,000 people across the network, to be even a small part of that it great.

Clinical research nursing is definitely not for the fainthearted. I was twice involved in developing new networks in Kent and Medway; the Cancer Research Network and then the CLRN. There was very little research activity at the time but awareness of research is definitely starting to change. A major culture shift but there are still areas within our CLRN where there is no research activity. In the early days there was a mixture of lack of knowledge and lack of interest in research, but most of all the clinical staff didn’t realise we were there as a resource for them to handle the more time consuming aspects of starting up a trial. That has changed.

My hope is that within my lifetime research will be embedded into the NHS in Kent to such an extent that the public can go to their doctor and ask what clinical trials are available for them and their doctor will know. Wherever my career takes me from here, I know that I want to stay within research I have developed a passion for it.

Research Management

Debbie Beirne, Nurse Consultant, Cancer Research UK, Leeds

I loved research from the start. I loved the autonomy, responsibility, the degree of change, the degree of learning. When new nurses start with me I tell them that they will probably feel like a fish out of water for six months. I explain it is a very dynamic and interesting environment, not suitable for anyone who likes things to stay the same.

Adapting to change is probably the most important thing. With research we don’t want things to stay still, we want them to move forward and nurses have to be able to move with that. A big misconception is that research nurses float around with a clipboard, drink tea and work very standard hours. None of that is true. I don’t think that there is the appreciation that we are actually delivering care, not just writing protocols for others.

Research nurses can now have a role that is much broader.

I have several parts to my role – my day-to-day operational role, a translational development role, a role within my trust as a research expert for other departments, and my Cancer Research UK role in engaging with the public at events. I work with some of our clinician scientists to deliver their protocols. I help them look at what they are currently doing in the labs and how that could translate into patient care. As a result, I have some co-investigator roles on a few grants.

I have seen huge changes in almost every aspect of research since 1999, except for the fundamental of how we care for the patient. Research Governance has changed, the way we structure and deliver clinical research has changed, the way we inform people has changed. Clinical trials are much more complex than they were ten years ago, and so the role of a research nurse is much more complex too. It's a very dynamic and interesting environment, not suitable for anyone who likes things to stay the same.

Obviously medical science wants to engage with the public and keep them aware of advances but when a newspaper runs a 'magic bullet' headline it impacts the work I do. I frequently get calls from patients who don’t realise that the headline doesn’t relate to their situation or refers to something in a lab which could take us 18 months to translate. I think we have a duty to give people hope but make sure it is a realistic hope.

Research allows you a degree of personal and professional development in a more flexible framework than traditional nursing. There are lots of different avenues; Network managers and lead nurses, Trust and R&D lead nurses and new roles are always coming up. As recently as five years ago if you wanted to move beyond a Band 7 you had to leave nursing, now I am a Band 8b and still a nurse.

We need to move away from the idea that as a research nurse you are just picking up the trial and delivering it. Research nurses can now have a role that is much broader. You can be involved in writing the protocol, be a patient voice with scientists, change the research culture within the wider trust.

Patient and Public Involvement

Maggie Peat, Lead Research Nurse, Harrogate and District Foundation Trust and Patient and Public Involvement Lead North and East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Comprehensive Local Research Network

I was working as a nurse giving chemotherapy. It was just at the start of the cancer research networks. I didn’t really have much idea about what research networks might do, it just sounded like a really interesting job. When I started there was a lot of feeling your way, there wasn’t a lot of guidance around. There is a lot more now. We mentor people.

We recognised fairly early on that most student nurses didn’t really know anything about research. I wanted to show them that it wasn’t just about systematic reviews and all the really dull stuff but about actually recruiting patients into studies and the really exciting stuff of being at the sharp end of research. Student nurses absolutely loved it.

Often patients will take part in research because it's for the greater good.

Some of the Patient and Public Involvement work has been about raising awareness because patients and the public have all sorts of good ideas that we don’t think of, like putting information up on screens in patient waiting areas. Everybody is doing that now but none of us had thought of that because we didn’t wait in the waiting areas. Accessibility to information is really important. The people who need properly accessible information the most, are the people who are least likely to ask because they don’t want to look stupid or think that they are going to be judged.

It’s a simple thing that after taking consent to say to the person "right I want to be really sure that you understand what you are taking on. So can you say to me, what you might say to your wife when you get home?" It is simple but nurses are not taught how to do that. It is important that we have tools to measure understanding.

The power imbalance between a nurse and a patient is less than between a consultant and patient. It makes it easier for a patient to say no to taking part in a study. It is important, that people can say no to a trial. Patients understand the incremental process of research. One of the things they say is "all that I have benefited from has come from someone else doing a study." Often patients will take part in research because it is for the greater good or sometimes it is a positive thing to come out of something bad that has happened to them. 

I wanted to show them that it wasn’t just about systematic reviews and all the really dull stuff. I think people are sometimes terrified of signing up for Patient and Public Involvement, thinking that they may have to do more than they want to do. So all our stuff is about saying to people, you can be involved as much as you want to be, you can do the occasional information sheet, you can look at a questionnaire and comment on it or you can come and be part of a steering group. People and patients can be involved in research as much or as little as they like.

NIHR has made it easier for consultants to take a study on, partly because of the nursing infrastructure. Nurses and support staff can work with consultants and we are here to stay. If you are interested in research nursing just do it, it suits most people. We have not had anyone work here that doesn’t love doing research.

Informing the Public

Karen Doyle, Senior Nurse, Cancer Research UK

When I started, research nursing was on the fringe of nursing. At the time we were told "you look after the doctors that is your role". That old fashioned view of nursing was still there.

I started in clinical research nursing because I wanted to be using all of the knowledge that I had gathered in my career. There were nurse specialist posts but I wanted something more intriguing, more complex. I didn’t want to do nurse management because it would take me away from patients. I always wanted to be patient centred. Research nursing offered all of that. I loved the fact that research nurses were involved in the science.

There were a lot of cancer patients with horrible side effects from the treatments available at the time. I wanted to be part of something that was not just accepting what we had because there was room for improvement. I wanted to be with the team that was making things better for these patients. Initially we were given early phase work such as toxicity and safety of the drug or treatment. So lots of additional testing. I loved the intensity and you got to know patients really well. I loved that in-depth interaction.

We are getting out into the communities with the right messages.

Medical teams sometimes want to get their patients into trials for compassionate, for misguided reasons. Sometimes you will get medical teams saying "But we have no other treatment to give them." You have to be strong. A clinical trial is not a treatment option and I think people forget that. We have to make sure that it is the right thing for the patient. That is what we are there for. When deciding if a trial is the right thing for a patient it is not only the science that matters. Sometimes it is the simple questions that matter for patients. Can you take tablets? Will you be able to cope with travelling to the trial? Those questions are missed if you haven’t got a nurse. We are the practical voice that makes the trial work.

I have developed my research nursing role to include informing members of the public about research. I love talking in the community because that is where the information is needed. We are getting out into the communities with the right messages – myth busting about clinical trials. Public understanding is better than it was but it has a long way to go. I have discovered that in addition to being face to face with the patient making the difference, I can also become the person (as a trainer) who will influence the nurses who are face-to-face. I can benefit many more patients through training than I could with nursing alone. I get a lot of reward from influencing other nurses. It is not management to me, management was taking you away from patients.

Research nurse leaders should be proud. We have taken the role of nurses in research from setting out someone’s lunch to a dynamic career. We have got national research nurse networks, we have got training and we have got the support of the NIHR. The change really is dramatic. I don’t know of any other type of nursing where it has improved as much and got more respect over time. You are really working as a specialist team member. That is the way it should be.

Claire Merritt, Lead Research Nurse Manager, Dementias & Neurodegenerative Diseases Research Network, Oxford

I caught the research bug in my first research post about 10 years ago. A consultant colleague had a grant to do a pilot study and asked me if I would be interested in working as a research nurse on their research study. 

I was the only research nurse and was responsible for recruitment and study delivery and very quickly learnt about how challenging it was identifying patients and accessing patients for research. Rightly, there are people who want to protect patients, but it’s about persuading them that research is a good idea. Encouraging them to introduce the idea to a patient can be hard. People think there is a large cohort of people out there for trials. In reality, the numbers are much lower than you expect them to be.

What we have done for the last seven years within DeNDRoN is about trying to facilitate a culture change within the Trusts and make research part of everyday thinking. We’ve introduced what we call link workers into teams. Each of the community mental health teams has an honorary research worker linked to it. This has been successful as they develop an understanding of what that teams needs and wants and how they work.

Working with patients is what nurses do best.

As well as building up a team it’s about building up an infrastructure to support research to happen. During the time I have been working with DeNDRoN the portfolio of research studies within Trusts has grown, as has the complexity of studies we are able to support. The key message is that research becomes embedded in patient pathways so it becomes everyone’s business and not just ours.

Our job is about helping to facilitate research to happen. Partly, that’s just continuously giving that message that research is an important activity. We’ve had a degree of success, but I think we still have a way to go to persuade all clinicians that research is their business. Some clinicians have bought into this concept well, some still argue they do not have the time to do research and some say they find research is something scary. However, research is about empowering patients and their caregivers and the general population to help.

You get a very interesting range of people who are keen to take part in research. Some people want to be able to access something that may make a difference to their relatives or themselves. Others have altruistic motives and want to help, because it will help others rather than help themselves. On the other hand some people don’t really understand what we mean by research, or feel it’s too scary or risky or too much of a burden. So education is important. We must always remember we work with people in crisis and sometimes it is not the right time for them to consider research.

Working with patients is what nurses do best. So for most research nurses the contact with patients bit deals with itself. There is though a lot to learn and it’s all the other stuff around research you have to work hard at. As a lead nurse most of my job is about providing clinical leadership to staff, making sure that things happen and supporting workforce development. Key to what I do is making sure we have the right people with the right training in order for us to do research that can go on to make a difference to people in the future. Everything we do is about forward thinking, you always have to be thinking about the future.

Toward the end of a long career in mental health nursing I am really pleased to have found myself following a career in research. I am quite passionate about working in research. You have to believe in research to make this job a success.

Patient Care

Kathryn Kennedy, Trainee Advanced Clinical Research Nurse Practitioner, Manchester Clinical Research Facility

When I worked as a clinical nurse we did not have that much interaction with the research nurses who came onto the ward, even though most of the children were on trial drugs with a protocol I don’t think I really understood what that meant. Because I was nosy and interested I got to know more about the research side of things.

When I started in clinical research nursing the studies were lower intensity to what we have now, generally well children in an out-patient setting. At first it felt like a little bit of step back on the clinical side but that gave me the opportunity to really develop my research knowledge.

The team is now dealing in phase 1, phase 2 trials now in children who have no other treatment options, sometimes quite unwell, so we are in the heart of clinical nursing on a daily basis. The role of the research nurse is critical to keeping families motivated to stay on the trial … we spend a lot of time ensuring that their journey through the trial is a positive experience.

Our expertise is essential in ensuring that the study runs smoothly.

I think the perception of losing the clinical part of the nursing role perhaps puts some people off. Friends have expressed that they would not consider research because they see it as a very academic, very administrative based role. That could not be further from the truth. We don’t cut corners with informed consent. Parents need to understand at a level where they are able to put their emotions to one side and make a decision based on the knowledge we have given them.

Some of our children come from Europe and can be re located in this country for up to 6 months with their family. The research nurse is very much responsible for that relocation, as the liaison with hospital services or sponsors, ensuring bank accounts are in place, other children are getting educated. A lot of biotech companies are new companies. It might only be their third or fourth clinical trial.

Our expertise is essential in ensuring that the study runs smoothly. It is not reasonable to involve parents in that process if these things have not been thought through. We are invited earlier now to go to (sponsor and management) meetings because they are recognising our expertise. We are the ones who understand how to get things right from the very beginning.

I am a trainee advanced practitioner due to qualify in September. It is really exciting to be the first. This is a brand new role to research; able to recruit children to clinical trials, deal with physical examinations, prescribe and see patients without the support of a medic. As an advanced practitioner we can provide support for PIs hopefully this will ease some of that pressure so that trials that we wouldn’t perhaps have been able to do, because there wasn’t the medical support, get done.

I wasn’t sure that research nursing was somewhere I would stay forever. I wanted the research knowledge and experience but knew that my heart would be in clinical nursing. This new opportunity coming along has allowed me to be even more clinical in research nursing.

My new role has generated interest from other nurses that did not know this kind of role would be possible in research. You get to make a difference in a very different way. I still get to look after sick children which is what I always liked about nursing. But now there is a deeper level to this.

Supporting Primary Care

Julia Rooney, NIHR Primary Care Research Nurse, Kent, Surrey and Sussex Clinical Research Network

I used to manage the cardiac care unit at Brighton for many years. I also had a period in the Middle East working in a heart centre. When I came back I worked for the heart network in Sussex where I also worked within primary care which was great experience as it is very different from secondary care.

I am now a research nurse working in primary care, coordinating and running studies in practices where there isn’t capacity to carry out research. I started in this post six months ago and I have found it to be a very fulfilling job for many reasons. It is so rewarding what you get back from patients who want to be involved in research for the greater good

In nursing you cannot move forward without research and we are an evidenced based profession, for example we wouldn’t have made the advances we have in the treatment of heart attack patients without research. The autonomy you get within this role and the one-to-one patient contact you have means the whole process is extremely worthwhile. I cannot recommend the role highly enough. I was looking for a something that would get me more contact with patients and a new challenge … it allows me to utilise my clinical background and experience within research and means I can make a difference that way.

As a nurse you always are an advocate for patients. You make sure they are the priority in the research.

I was apprehensive recruiting my first patient despite years of experience in nursing. I am a bit of a perfectionist and wanted to get it right, taking the informed consent, making sure the patients understood what they were entering into. Once you start it becomes very natural. In my previous position I was moving further away from patients and then this opportunity came up. Everyone who asks about my job I say 'I love it! There isn’t anything I don’t like about it'. People are probably getting a bit bored of me talking about it now.

I underestimated the job in the beginning. I knew it was something I wanted to do but I underestimated how much I would love it and how much of a difference I could make to patients’ lives. This will change lives for future generations. You actually get time with a patient. In that hour or so you can hear other concerns they have and you can talk to them and advise them. You get the opportunity to discuss issues that may be of concern to the patient.

My working days vary so much, for example for one study I arrive in clinic, order a courier to collect the bloods, get the clinic room ready and all of the paperwork. Then you consent the patient and run the study. I might have to then go to another clinic in another practice to complete paperwork or run a shorter clinic. I genuinely don’t have two days the same. If you have the clinical background just do clinical research. Until you are doing the job you cannot be sure how fantastic it is. The studies I am involved in will change lives. You cannot put a price on that.

Susan Read, NIHR Primary Care Research Nurse, West Midlands Local Clinical Research Network

Five years ago the Midlands Research Practices Consortium (MidRec) secured funding to recruit some half-time research nurse posts based in local GP research active practices. I’ve always been interested in research and was working in a very busy GP surgery at the time, seeing patients every 5-10 minutes, with no quality time available to spend with my patients. I thought this job would give me the opportunity to spend more satisfactory time with patients while becoming involved in gathering accurate information to provide evidence based medicine.

I was the first nurse appointed and now part of a successful team of six nurses, based in our own individual surgeries, overseen by a Lead Research Nurse. Before we started running research studies in our nominated surgeries our Lead Nurse manager ensured that we underwent a programme of mandatory training so we had an understanding of what was required to safely be involved in research.

We have this supportive network of research nurses which makes for a powerful effective team.

Gradually the studies came in and I remember being asked by Professor McManus how many studies we were running and I said we were currently running about 20 studies. He was surprised. I think that opened the GPs’ eyes and they realised the opportunity they had with the support of the nurses.

Many studies are observational where you are looking and extracting data. We also look at feasibility of studies, so we are contacted by a study manager and asked to find out the number of patients we have. So we can go back to the study team and say these are the numbers for this head of population which we think you will be able to access at these surgeries.

The medical knowledge nurses have comes in useful when running feasibility studies. We can search effectively for eligible patients. We significantly help the GPs. I remember my first patient recruited to a study. I was absolutely thrilled because patients were willing to participate in the study where we were doing near patient testing and baseline health measurements with immediate feedback of results which we then had time to discuss. If necessary the patients could be referred back to their GP for any concerns that were highlighted.

The patient contact, the communication pathway that opened up in the last five years with the team has given me job satisfaction. We really feel included more so now than ever before. What pleases me the most is that although we are autonomous within our own environment there are five other host nurses. We have this supportive network of research nurses which makes a powerful effective team. We have opened up effective pathways between the university, study teams and other professionals. If they need help or an answer to a query we can normally provide the information quickly and efficiently because we have close contact with the GPs.

If someone is considering a career in research I would say come and join me for a day and see things first hand. Many of the host nurses have come from a Practice nurse background and have a wide range of knowledge because you can in any given day look after babies, give travel jabs, look after women’s health to caring for a patients with a chronic condition. Over the years our training has covered an enormous remit.

You learn a lot from problems, you have to be pragmatic and always look for solutions. When they set up this scheme, we were a pilot study. The success of the Pilot enabled funding to continue and currently the NIHR fund us through their networks even after MidRec itself came to an end. Patients deserve the opportunity to be involved in research.

Building Social Media Networks

Nathaniel Mills, Research Nurse Manager, Clinical Research Network: Yorkshire and Humber

My research career started in 2007. I was working in a large teaching hospital, part-time research and part-time primary care. When I started there was some negativity around working in research from colleagues who thought it was not real nursing. They thought it wasn’t direct patient care. But for me it was something I felt I could do to make a difference.

The whole notion of improving health and wellbeing through research appeals to me. I joined the NIHR Clinical Research Facility in Sheffield when it was a relatively new facility and I was in one of the first cohorts of research nurses. As a novice to clinical research you think ‘what’s it all about?’ but with experience and as time goes on, you physically see a patient’s symptoms improving. That gave me a great deal of job satisfaction.

In some cases the patient you see at the beginning of a trial is different to the same patient at the end of the trial. This is not just because they have had an trial intervention but because you, the nurse and the research team have given them the support and care that comes with trial participation.

I am passionate about twitter because it pulls together these groups of people who have common themes and needs.

When the NIHR Coordinating Centre began to consider social media as a tool to support research staff and utilise established tools, I became involved in the work of the NIHR Clinical Research Network Nurses Strategy Board. I met up with Fiona O’Neill, a few colleagues and Teresa Chinn from ‘@WeNurses’ to start up a clinical research nursing network on twitter. Teresa was inspiring in the sense that she’s a nurse working on her own and used social media to connect with other nurses. She now has a community of over 10,000 active and innovative followers.

So we developed a social media strategy (#crnnurse) with the aim of connecting the clinical research nursing community - especially reaching out to those nurses working in silos, something which is common in clinical research. We advertised this through the Clinical Research Network newsletter, and widely on Twitter we have regular ‘tweet chat’ debates and anyone who has anything to say about clinical research can participate - this has led to an active and vibrant community on social media.

Sometimes I get the odd negative responses such as 'I don’t want to do this in my own time' or 'what’s the point?' and that’s the beauty of it, you don’t have to, you can participate as much or as little as you like, the conversation is always going on.

Since its launch we have achieved a lot. We have a community of nurses and international nurses from the USA, Australia, South America and North Africa. We promote good practice and social media brings the learning to the community ... it’s free, cheap and easy. People who link in to our network can find out which Trusts are running trials. Problems can be shared rather than dealing with them by yourself, because it is highly likely someone will have already encountered the problem. So I would encourage nurses to get out there and start networking through social media, it can help make the life of clinical research nurses much easier.

I think the future is whatever you want it to be in terms of social media. If we do it right we can respond to what the nursing community wants. I am passionate about twitter because it pulls together these groups of people who have common themes and needs. Of course we have to consider what we say on a public forum, but we are all professional nurses and we are accountable for our actions. Follow me @natwm10 or @resnurse.

• News & Events
• Faculty & Staff

A world-class city filled with art and culture and an incredible campus that offers cutting edge resources–that’s what students receive at Penn Nursing. And that’s just the start. Penn Nursing and the wider university offer something for everyone, as well as a lifelong community.

Penn Nursing is globally known for educating dynamic nurses—because our School values evidence-based science and health equity. That’s where our expertise lies, whether in research, practice, community health, or beyond. Everything we do upholds a through-line of innovation, encouraging our exceptional students, alumni, and faculty share their knowledge and skills to reshape health care.

Penn Nursing students are bold and unafraid, ready to embrace any challenge that comes their way. Whether you are exploring a career in nursing or interested in advancing your nursing career, a Penn Nursing education will help you meet your goals and become an innovative leader, prepared to change the face of health and wellness.

Penn Nursing is the #1-ranked nursing school in the world. Its highly-ranked programs help develop highly-skilled leaders in health care who are prepared to work alongside communities to tackle issues of health equity and social justice to improve health and wellness for everyone.

Penn Nursing’s rigorous academic curricula are taught by world renowned experts, ensuring that students at every level receive an exceptional Ivy League education . From augmented reality classrooms and clinical simulations to coursework that includes experiential global travel to clinical placements in top notch facilities, a Penn Nursing education prepares our graduates to lead.

Revolutionizing Nurse Work Environment Research

New research from Penn Nursing ’s Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research (CHOPR) – recently published online in the journal Research in Nursing & Health – has successfully validated a new, streamlined version of the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index (PES-NWI), originally authored in 2002 by Eileen T. Lake, PhD, RN, FAAN , Professor of Nursing, the Edith Clemmer Steinbright Professor in Gerontology, and Associate Director of CHOPR, who is also lead author on this publication. This innovative tool, known as the PES-5, is designed to revolutionize how nurse work environments are measured across the United States.

For over two decades, the PES-NWI has been a cornerstone in surveying and assessing the organizational traits that support or undermine professional nursing practice. These traits include whether nurses are empowered to make decisions, are respected as professionals by physicians, and whether staffing and resources are sufficient for quality patient care. This instrument has crucially shown that the work environment is the principal factor contributing to nurse burnout, which is now an international crisis. However, the instrument’s length—31 traits across five domains—has often been a barrier to widespread and frequent use due to the significant time commitment required from respondents.

The PES-5 directly addresses this issue by condensing the original tool into a version that covers all five domains without sacrificing the robustness or reliability of the full survey and assessment. This new form was derived from extensive research involving cross-sectional analyses of survey data from nurses across 760 hospitals in six US states.

To validate this dramatically streamlined instrument, a team of CHOPR nurse investigators followed a proven abridgment procedure to find the shortest possible way to measure while maintaining the tool’s integrity.

Key findings from the study include:

• The PES-5 shows promise for measuring nurses’ work environments by reducing participant burden and maximizing the response rate.
• The PES-5 maintains strong predictive validity with respect to nurse-reported work environments and patient outcomes.
• The classification accuracy into hospitals with “better,” “mixed,” and “poor” work environments of the PES‐5 was high, with 88% of hospitals classified identically by both versions.

“In the context of pervasive surveying in our society, the PES‐5 can alleviate survey burden while still providing vital data for managers and policymakers,” said Lake. “Thus, the practical significance and applicability of the PES-5 are wide-ranging, from single-institution dashboards to regulatory body oversight.”

The PES-5 represents a major step forward in efficiently gathering data on nursing practice environments. It will help ensure that more hospitals can regularly assess their work environments without overburdening nursing staff, potentially improving nurse satisfaction and patient care quality. Dr. Lake, who is steward of the PES-NWI national quality measure, will add the PES-5 to the national endorsement.

Co-authors of this article include Penn Nursing’s Jennifer Gil, MSN, RN; Lynne Moronski, PhD, MPA, RN; Karen B. Lasater, PhD, RN, FAAN; Linda H. Aiken, PhD, RN, FAAN, FRCN; and Matthew D. McHugh, PhD, JD, MPH, RN, CRNP, FAAN. This study was supported by funding from the National Institute of Nursing Research, Grant/Award Numbers: NINR ‐ T32‐NR‐ 007104, NINR‐2R01NR014855‐06; and the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, Grant/Award Number: NCSBN CRE R201011.

More Stories

Patricia d’antonio, phd, transitions from standing faculty, hooray for the 2024 graduating class, honorary doctorate for penn nursing professor, media contact, see yourself here.

Mobile Menu Overlay

The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington, DC 20500

Statement from President Joe   Biden on $7.7 Billion in Student Debt Cancellation for 160,000   Borrowers

Today, my Administration is canceling student debt for 160,000 more people, bringing the total number of Americans who have benefitted from our debt relief actions to 4.75 million. Each of those borrowers has received an average of over $35,000 in debt cancellation. These 160,000 additional borrowers are people enrolled in my Administration’s SAVE Plan; are public service workers like teachers, nurses, or law enforcement officials; or are borrowers who were approved for relief because of fixes we made to Income-Driven Repayment. 

Today’s announcement comes on top of the significant progress we’ve made for students and borrowers over the past three years. That includes providing the largest increases to the maximum Pell Grant in over a decade; fixing Public Service Loan Forgiveness so teachers, nurses, police officers, and other public service workers get the relief they are entitled to under the law; and holding colleges accountable for taking advantage of students and families. And last month, I laid out my Administration’s new plans that would cancel student debt for more than 30 million Americans when combined with everything we’ve done so far. 

From day one of my Administration, I promised to fight to ensure higher education is a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity. I will never stop working to cancel student debt – no matter how many times Republican elected officials try to stop us.

Stay Connected

We'll be in touch with the latest information on how President Biden and his administration are working for the American people, as well as ways you can get involved and help our country build back better.

Opt in to send and receive text messages from President Biden.

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Prim Health Care Res Dev
• PMC10372769

What are the experiences of nurses delivering research studies in primary care?

Azaria ballintine.

1 University of Birmingham (Contingent Key Worker)/The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust (Research Nurse), UK

Rachel Potter

2 Warwick Medical School, UK

Background:

Clinical research provides evidence to underpin and inform advancements in the quality of care, services and treatments. Primary care research enables the general patient population access and opportunities to engage in research studies. Nurses play an integral role in supporting the delivery of primary care research, but there is limited understanding of nurses’ experiences of this role and how they can be supported to facilitate the delivery of research.

To explore the experiences of nurses delivering research studies in primary care settings.

We identified studies published between 2002 and June 2021 from key electronic databases. A two-level inclusion/exclusion and arbitration process was conducted based on study selection criteria. Data extraction and quality appraisal were performed simultaneously. Data were analysed in the form of a narrative synthesis.

The key themes identified included: (1) what nurses value about primary care research and their motivations for study engagement, (2) the role of nurses in research, (3) working with research teams, (4) study training, (5) eligibility screening, data collection and study documentation, (6) nurse/participant dynamic, (7) gatekeeping, (8) relationships with colleagues and impact on recruitment, (9) time constraints and workload demands, and (10) health and safety.

Conclusions:

Nurses are integral to the delivery of research studies in primary care settings. The review highlights the importance of good communication by study teams, timely and study-specific training, and support from colleagues to enable nurses to effectively deliver research in primary care.

Introduction

Primary care research increases opportunities for the general patient population to access studies and plays an important role in providing evidence to support improvements in patient care (Hyland and Clarke Moloney, 2016 ). In the United Kingdom, primary care research is mainly delivered in general practice but can include other primary care providers such as pharmacies and dental practices. Primary care services are strongly linked with wider community services such as community mental health, community nursing and residential and nursing homes who also contribute to the delivery of research (National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), 2021 ).

The NIHR Clinical Research Network (CRN) Primary Care Strategy outlines a vision to embed a coherent research theme within primary care through collaboration with the NIHR and wider strategic stakeholders, to encourage and support the delivery of high-quality research in a setting accessible to almost all the population (NIHR, 2022 ). However, delivering research in primary care has specific challenges, such as clinicians located across multiple sites and patients who access general practitioner (GP) services inconsistently (Graffy et al. , 2010 ). The absence of research infrastructure in many general practices can call for ingenuity on the part of practice staff to deliver studies effectively (Young et al. , 2009 ). High-quality research nurse support, prior to and during study delivery, is integral to the ability of GPs to support research activity (Gemzoe et al. , 2020 ).

In the United Kingdom, the day-to-day delivery of research in primary care is often nurse-led, with clinical oversight from a lead GP. Practice nurses may be an underutilised resource in the ambition to expand primary care research delivery (Shaw et al. , 2005 ). Due to the interdependency of primary care and community care services, a variety of nurses can be involved in the delivery of primary care-based research studies, including but not limited to practice nurses, community nurses, specialist nurses, hospice nurses and clinical research nurses. Nurses supporting research studies in primary care may be involved with recruiting patients, receiving informed consent, collecting data from patient records, conducting patient follow-up appointments and maintaining patient safety throughout study duration.

The aim of this review is to explore the experiences of nurses delivering research studies in primary care to understand how best to support nurses in this role.

Search strategy

We searched for studies published from 2002 to June 2021 from the following electronic databases: Ovid MEDLINE, Ebsco Cinahl, Proquest, Ovid PsycINFO, Web of Science; generic web searches (Google Scholar); grey literature (digital theses on UBIRA EThesis); and from reference lists of retrieved articles.

The search strategy used free text and medical subject headings; see Table  1 . An initial scoping search used the SPIDER tool (sample, phenomenon of interest, design, evaluation and research type) to help define search terms.

Search terms

Inclusion criteria:

• Qualitative and mixed-method studies
• Focus groups, interviews and surveys
• Conducted in primary care and community settings
• Nurses involved in the delivery of research studies
• Published in English

Exclusion criteria:

• Quantitative studies
• Conference abstracts
• Research conducted in underdeveloped countries.

Key recommendations

• Nurses should be asked rather than nominated to take part in research studies.
• Minimise the burden of work involved in delivering research studies.
• Study teams should provide regular communication and a recognised point of contact.
• Timely and study-specific training.
• Good communication, and support and understanding by colleagues.
• Protected/funded time for research activities when possible.
• Awareness of inadvertently acting as a gatekeeper to patients taking part in studies.

Data management and screening

Search outputs were uploaded to Endnote 20, and duplicates were removed. References were imported to Rayyan software for a two-level inclusion/exclusion and arbitration process. Titles were screened, and full copies of relevant papers were sought. The main reviewer (AB) screened records for inclusion and the second reviewer (RP) checked decisions to see if they concurred. Any disagreements were resolved by discussion. See Figure  1 for reasons for exclusion at full-text level.

Flow diagram of included studies

Data extraction and quality assessment

A customised data extraction spreadsheet was developed from an adapted version of the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Data Extraction Tool for Qualitative Research (Aromataris and Munn, 2020 ). The main reviewer extracted data and the second reviewer checked the data extracted, with regular, ongoing communications to ensure agreement with decisions reached. The Critical Appraisals Skills Programme (CASP) checklist (Critical Appraisal Skills, 2018 ) was integrated into the data extraction spreadsheet to assess the quality of the studies and risk of bias.

We used a narrative synthesis to analyse and present our main findings. We considered a narrative synthesis appropriate to allow us to explore the similarities and differences between studies and provide a critical and objective analysis of the findings. Other methods of analysis could have been chosen, such as thematic synthesis, to identify commonality across studies. However, narrative synthesis was selected because the approach helps to clearly contextualise and characterise studies and can make heterogeneity between studies more apparent (Barnett-Page and Thomas, 2009 ).

A summary of the 14 studies identified for the review are presented in Table  2 . The studies were published between 2002 and 2021 and from the United Kingdom (eight), United States (two), Australia (two) and Sweden (one), with geographical locations not specified in a systematic review (one). Studies were conducted in general practice (four), a nursing home (one), patients’ homes and/or clinic environments (five) or delivered across both primary and secondary care settings (four).

Summary of studies included in the review

Study methods included focus groups (three), individual interviews (five), surveys (two), mixed methods (three) and a systematic review (one).

Most studies (eight) included nurses as their sole participants: practice nurses (two), community nurses (two), nurses employed specifically to support the delivery of studies (one), health visitors and community midwives (one), nurses conducting their own research (one) and student nurses (one); herewith referred to collectively as nurses. The remaining six studies included nurses plus other health professionals, herewith referred to as ‘nurses and other staff’.

Nurses were either employed solely to work on research studies (five), or the nurses incorporated research delivery alongside their routine clinical work (eight); in the remaining study, this was unclear.

We identified 10 key themes relating to the experience of nurses supporting research in primary care:

• What nurses value about primary care research and their motivations for engaging in research?

Nurses appreciated the importance of primary care research and wanted to increase their knowledge and involvement in research processes (Hange et al. , 2015 ). Some nurses considered supporting research as essential to their professional role, believing that evidence-based research findings could enhance clinical practice and patient care (Rose et al. , 2021 ).

Motivation for taking part in research often centred on perceived improvements in patient care. Nurses referred to extended consultation times, access to new treatments and equipment, and the enjoyment they gain from additional patient contact (Shaw et al. , 2005 ). Nurses reported positive patient outcomes such as improved wound healing or helping patients come to terms with a disease (Newall et al. , 2009 ; Potter et al. , 2009 ).

Nurses attested the experience of taking part in research had positively changed their practice by providing an opportunity to reflect on their normal clinical approach (Boase et al. , 2012 ). Some nurses thought the status of their organisation would rise due to the credibility afforded from taking part in quality research, and that their participation in research could raise the profile of nursing (Newall et al. , 2009 ).

There was some evidence that how nurses felt about delivering research was affected by whether they were asked if they wanted to contribute to the delivery of a research study (Newall et al. , 2009 ). Nurses who were nominated to recruit patients to a study felt burdened, whereas nurses who were asked reported positive experiences of study involvement (Potter et al. , 2009 ).

• The role of nurses in research

Not all nurses felt confident in their new role of delivering research studies and needing to acquire new knowledge and competencies (Hange et al. , 2015 ). Some nurses found autonomous working whilst supporting research studies less of a transition from a previous post which had involved independent working. Nurses and other staff acknowledged that skills from their previous employment (e.g., communication and phlebotomy) were transferrable and an asset to supporting trial delivery (McNiven et al. , 2021 ).

Nurses made decisions about multiple existing agendas in order to manage research delivery in a real-world setting (Boase et al. , 2012 ). Nurses found designation of roles during the study helpful, but they also found it challenging to combine clinical work with research (Hange et al. , 2015 ). Some nurses indicated that the research topic being addressed needed to be relevant to their roles and duties and identified the potential for role conflict (Rose et al. , 2021 ).

Nurses reported finding it challenging to take on a new role (research identity), encountering conflict between their roles, being a health professional with loyalty to patients and seeking to meet the demands of the practice, plus being part of the research team and striving to meet the obligations of a study (Boase et al. , 2012 ). McNiven et al. ( 2021 ) acknowledged that although a nurse employed specifically to do research may enter a clinical setting solely to conduct research-related duties (e.g., data collection and patient recruitment), they may be inclined to approach these obligations from a general nursing perspective. Nurses, therefore, need to be able to adapt to their new role and recognise that they are no longer working in the capacity of a member of the clinical team but are on site to support research.

• Working with research teams

Nurses reported wanting to be regarded as collaborators in research that is clinically relevant to practice and to be offered the opportunity to contribute to study design to optimise recruitment and increase sense of ownership (Fletcher et al. , 2012 ; Hange et al. , 2015 ). Nurses who enjoyed participating in the planning and design stages of the study and helping to identify and resolve potential issues shared this viewpoint (Newall et al. , 2009 ).

Communication between staff delivering the study and the research team was noted to impact on study promotion, staff engagement and study recruitment. Nurses reported a lack of encouragement from research teams as a barrier to supporting research, and communicative and visible study teams as a motivator (Rose et al. , 2021 ). Nurses expressed reduced contact with researchers during trial recruitment resulted in lost opportunity to ask study-related questions, fewer recruits and decreased motivation (Hange et al. , 2015 ). Nurses considered it of great importance to establish a connection with the research team and valued having a point of contact (Lamb et al. 2016 ).

• Study Training

The importance of assigning adequate time and resources for study training and study processes was identified by Boase et al. ( 2012 ). Rose et al. ( 2021 ) described how researchers should involve nurses in the design of training for a study and re-evaluate study training to ensure it continues to meet the needs of those for whom it is intended. Reducing the amount of time between receipt of study training and the commencement of recruitment could improve study engagement (Long et al. , 2020 ).

Training should cover study processes, recruitment, study rationale and the research topic (Rose et al. , 2021 ); information on methodology may also be beneficial (Fletcher et al. , 2012 ). Specialised research terminology used in the initial training session in the study by Boase et al. ( 2012 ) was unfamiliar to nurses and may have added to their anxiety. Repeats of study training (Hange et al. , 2015 ), additional booster sessions and mock recruitment exercises may all be beneficial (Mentes and Tripp-Reimer, 2002 ).

Kyte et al. ( 2016 ) highlighted several issues around training on patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs). Nurses felt they received little PROM training, and that additional training would enhance their ability to explain to participants why PROM data is collected and why it is important for a study. Nurses thought PROM training should include how to answer ambiguous questions and what to record when participants’ answers do not match available responses.

• Eligibility screening, data collection and study documentation

Screening patients for study eligibility was more intensive than anticipated, and nurses struggled to find suitable patients (Long et al. , 2020 ). Nurses sometimes found eligibility criteria too restrictive as they excluded patients who most presented with the health complaint being studied (Newall et al. , 2009 ). Confusion amongst nurses and other staff about study eligibility criteria and which version of the protocol was being used led to one nurse feeling undermined when her initial decision to exclude patients was questioned by a colleague (Long et al. , 2020 ).

Having additional time to interview potential participants for inclusion could have been advantageous, and time constraints meant nurses were unable to ask enough questions about patients’ symptoms, reducing opportunities for inclusion (Hange et al. , 2015 ). Some nurses developed helpful strategies to promote research studies, such as notices about the study in clinic rooms and computer screen alerts (Potter et al. , 2009 ).

Instruction on data collection processes needs to be clear and in the most appropriate form for nurses to access. Clear guidance in the study protocol can help avoid differences in interpretation and inaccuracy of data collection (Long et al. , 2020 ; Kyte et al. , 2016 ).

Obtaining study data can be time-consuming, particularly in community settings when patients’ medical records are not readily to hand (Long et al. , 2020 ), with some nurses reporting to get fed up with data collection (Newall et al. , 2009 ). High staff turnover, inflexible staff work schedules and challenging study population characteristics (e.g., cognitively impaired) can hamper data collection efforts (Mentes and Tripp-Reimer, 2002 ).

The initial research information provided to practices should succinctly describe the study, and the study methodology should be easy to understand and convey to patients (Fletcher et al. , 2012 ). Terminology used in study documentation can be open to potential bias, for example, nurses regarded one participant’s information leaflet as emphasising the intervention more than the control (Long et al. , 2020 ). Study information should be comprehensive and accessible to equip nurses with the knowledge needed to answer patient queries, without requiring them to spend additional time reading about the research subject (Rose et al. , 2021 ).

Scripted protocols are a guided dialogue provided by study teams to recruiting staff to standardise their communications with patients. However, scripted protocols may result in less personal and more robotic communications (Morgan et al. , 2017 ). Nurses found using a scripted protocol formulaic, repetitive, uncomfortable and patronising towards patients (Boase et al. , 2012 ).

• Nurse/participant dynamic

Nurses prioritised developing trust with potential participants, empowering patient decision-making around whether to take part in a study out of choice rather than obligation (Lamb et al. , 2016 ; Morgan et al. , 2017 ). Nurses thought patients may be less likely to take part in a study without the presence of an amicable relationship (Lamb et al. , 2016 ). Participants recommended taking part in the study to friends and family based on their perception of the nurse/staff member, rather than the study itself (Morgan et al. , 2017 ).

Nurses believed a good relationship with prospective participants could be developed, and disengaged participants may be disarmed, by adopting a highly polite manner, using formal forms of address, and showing appreciation by thanking individuals for giving up their time to engage in research. Nurses commonly went above and beyond to accommodate participants (e.g., maximising appointment flexibility and seeing late arrivals), which improved nurses’ ability to recruit and retain participants (Morgan et al. , 2017 ).

Nurses and other staff found it challenging to get across salient points about a study to patients, yet were aware their choice of language, and ease in communicating with patients with whom they identify (e.g., similar social class) could be influential (Fletcher et al. , 2012 ). Some likened explaining the process of randomisation to a sales pitch, or a description of the lottery, with winners and losers. McNiven et al. ( 2021 ) highlight that how a clinician conveys the patient information sheet to a participant (using vocabulary they understand) contributes to how well it is understood. The consequences of effective communication were demonstrated in the study by Newall et al. ( 2009 ) in which some nurses were surprised that patients were more tolerant of compression bandaging than they had anticipated and attributed this to better explanation of its efficacy.

Nurses considered it important to appreciate and address the patient’s own agendas before recruiting them as a study participant (Boase et al. , 2012 ). This was evident in the study by Newall et al. ( 2009 ) where resistance to study involvement was sometimes voiced by patients who thought participation may limit their freedoms and lengthen their district nurse visits.

• Gatekeeping

Nurses acted as gatekeepers, not approaching all patients who met study eligibility criteria, but only those who they deemed suitable (Fletcher et al. , 2012 ; Rose et al. 2021 ). When assessing patient eligibility, some nurses introduced additional factors to include or exclude a patient (Lamb et al. , 2016 ). For example, nurses were more inclined to approach patients who demonstrated good communicability, motivation, enthusiasm, interest and a good nurse/patient relationship (Lamb, Backhouse and Adderley, 2016 ). Conversely, some nurses tended to select patients who were non-compliant with their treatment in the hope that the study may help them reconsider their outlook (Potter et al. , 2009 ). Nurses were dissuaded from inviting patients with frailty/poor health, impaired mental capacity, social issues (isolation or recent bereavement), environmental issues posing concern for nurse safety (Lamb et al. , 2016 ), a lot of care input or who had been on the nurse caseload for a long time because they thought patients would not like it (Potter et al. , 2009 ).

Fletcher et al. ( 2012 ) explored some of the reasons gatekeeping took place. Nurses were concerned that study invitation may affect their dynamic with patients and did not want to be perceived as pushing patients to take part. Nurses grappled with the potential risks/side effects posed to patients versus the wider population gain research produces. Nurses factored in the timing and emotional burden of research involvement for patients who are terminally ill or with a poor prognosis.

Although nurses may be well intentioned, this additional pre-screening element potentially creates sample bias, a loss of patient autonomy, and a loss of valuable data on a hidden population (for which the size and demographic are unknown to both the researcher and patient) and limits generalisability of research findings (Lamb et al. , 2016 ).

• Relationships with colleagues and their impact on recruitment

Engaging colleagues in the research process can positively affect study delivery. Staff working collaboratively, with good communication and a shared research vision, can help to minimise resentment by non-study staff and promote patient recruitment.

It was important for participating practice teams to wholly adopt a shared research vision (Boase et al. , 2012 ) and for all nurses, not just those working on the study, to be kept updated on the research processes to minimise feelings of resentment or exclusion (Newall et al. , 2009 ). Facilitators to effective collaboration include sharing knowledge and experiences of good practice during study recruitment, joint working on study activities (recruitment and data collection), and the ability for nurses to be flexible, compatible and accommodating (Mentes and Tripp-Reimer, 2002 ). By implementing weekly progress reviews of trial recruitment, Newall et al. ( 2009 ) noted that this might lead to effectual collaborative working, information sharing and problem-solving. Challenges to collaborative working include time needed to liaise with other health professionals, unreliability of other health professionals to support research activity because of their clinical priorities (Long et al. , 2020 ), and the presence of hierarchical positions within GP practices, with a lack of collaborative decision-making (Shaw et al. , 2005 ).

Long et al. ( 2020 ) described how nurses spent a large proportion of time trying to raise the profile of a study by phoning and emailing trust staff and visiting clinical areas, yet engagement from colleagues to support the study was inconsistent. Nurses reported miscommunications with care home staff about sample collection, with staff ‘selectively hearing’ about trial obligations (Mentes and Tripp-Reimer, 2002 ).

Practice nurses reported feeling isolated working in a research capacity, with some being the only member of the team involved with the study. They reported experiencing resentment or concern from other nurses in the team who perceived clinical tasks as not prioritised due to research demands (Boase et al. , 2012 ). One nurse was concerned that colleagues regarded her as sitting and ‘doing nothing’ when attending to research obligations (Hange et al. , 2015 ).

• Time constraints and workload demands

Time is a well-documented barrier to the ability to support the delivery of studies (Fletcher et al. , 2012 ) and was reported in 9 of the 14 studies. Research duties may not be prioritised over existing obligations of achieving service targets (Mentes and Tripp-Reimer, 2002 ; Fletcher et al. , 2012 ).

Boase et al. ( 2012 ) found that when practice nurses were not allocated protected time for study activities, this compounded pressure on both their clinical and research work. In research-naïve practices, the challenges of securing allocated protected research time, separate to clinical duties, created tensions in work relationships (Shaw et al. , 2005 ).

Funded protected research time for nurses and other staff may improve recruitment and enable detailed explanation of the study to participants (Fletcher et al. , 2012 ). Potter et al. ( 2009 ) acknowledged that despite fees being paid to support practices with recruitment, dedicated time for recruitment only featured at a few sites. Nurses who allocated dedicated time for patient recruitment were more successful at recruiting participants.

High workload, competing priorities and the unpredictability of recruitment made it challenging to resource the research study with nurse time (Newall et al. , 2009 ). High workload can result in insufficient time for nurses and other staff to perform research activities (Hange et al. , 2015 ). For nurses not solely delivering research studies, study duties (e.g., assessing eligibility and receiving informed consent) created additional work over and above their usual workload (Fletcher et al. , 2012 ). Some nurses felt research funding should cover them for protected time to approach potential participants about study participation, rather than conducting research on top of their existing workload (Rose et al. , 2021 ). Study commitments in addition to usual workload can overwhelm nurses, especially when they are particularly pressured (Mentes and Tripp-Reimer, 2002 ).

Research teams should minimise the burden of work for nurses delivering research (Newall et al. , 2009 ). If funded protected time cannot be achieved, then reduction of workload related to study recruitment is critical to improving study recruitment (Fletcher et al. , 2012 ). Administrative staff could reduce the amount of time nurses spent recruiting patients and arranging follow-up visits (Boase et al. , 2012 ).

• Health and safety concerns

Barr and Welch ( 2012 ) explored workplace health and safety issues for nurses conducting research in the community. Most participants perceived their risk of harm to be minimal and tended to only complete perfunctory risk assessments that they saw as a requirement for their employers rather than for their own safety. Yet participants shared examples of their experiences of health and safety issues that arose when delivering studies including lone working risks, being stalked by a research participant and concerns for the welfare of others. The authors recommended that nurses would benefit from more understanding of the purpose of risk assessments and tips to disengage from researcher–participant relationships.

Nurses placed varying degrees of importance on conducting healthcare research influenced by: whether they considered research an incumbent part of their role; if they had been asked or nominated to support a research study; whether their contributions were adequately acknowledged; or whether the study covered a subject area they were interested in. The latter point supports findings by Rait et al. ( 2002 ) who recognised that practice nurses were keen to participate in research relevant to their practice population, and Davies et al. ( 2002 ) who observed that practice nurses doing their own research opt to study long-term health problems high in prevalence in their local patient population.

Barriers to nurses engaging in research included insufficient time, lack of support from colleagues and poor access to higher education resources (Davies et al. , 2002 ). Motivators included: perceived improvements to patient care, patient outcomes and clinical practice; personal benefit; career development; and raising the calibre of one’s organisation or nursing discipline.

The review highlighted the need for nurses to be involved in study design and study training, helping to identify and mitigate potential issues and shore up the efficient running of a study. Training can help nurses develop skills to face the challenges of study delivery, ensuring safe and ethical care is provided to research participants and high-quality data are collected (Hernon et al. , 2020 ). Study training should address the research topic, the rationale for conducting the study, study processes and recruitment. Ideally, training should be study-specific and practice-based (Rait et al. , 2002 ). Staff should receive training that includes some explanation of the rationale behind aspects of the protocol (e.g., inclusion/exclusion criteria) and the consequences of misconduct on the study and research objectives (True et al. , 2011 ). Specific training on PROM assessment methods, which are frequently used data collection methods, was also considered important.

Whether nurses delivered the research as their sole role, or in addition to an existing clinical role, impacted on the workload demands placed on nurses. Young et al. ( 2009 ) describe how ever-increasing workloads, insufficient support from medical colleagues and competing demands featured as major obstacles for nurses in research active general practices. Competing and organisational pressures can make it difficult to deliver research in primary care (Gaglio et al. , 2006 ), with clinical commitments posing the greatest barrier to research participation (Rait et al. , 2002 ). The literature review found that measures to reduce nurse workload have favourable outcomes on study delivery, and that nurses who allocated protected time were more successful with recruitment.

Hernon et al. ( 2020 ) described how clinical research nurses experienced isolation and a lack of understanding from colleagues about their role, creating difficulties for study recruitment. The review identified that fostering a good relationship with the wider working team can help nurses deliver research studies efficiently and minimise feelings of isolation and resentment. Regular and supportive dialogue between study teams and nurses bolsters study promotion, staff engagement and recruitment.

Nurses may find changing to a research role challenging and draw solace from existing, transferable nursing skills and experiences. Spilsbury et al. ( 2008 ) specify obstacles nurses associate with the role transition, namely lack of confidence, role conflict and difficulties encouraging clinical nursing staff to comply with study protocols, whilst maintaining their own motivation.

The review highlights the conflict nurses encounter being both a clinician and staff member supporting the delivery of research. Nurses were internally juxtaposed with being a patient advocate, whilst adhering to a study protocol. Tinkler et al. ( 2018 ) acknowledge the ethical issues nurses face when they feel patients may not truly understand the implications of taking part in a research study. Duncan et al. ( 2009 ) describe the tensions research staff encounter between encouraging open disclosures from research participants in qualitative interviews and acting on shared information in the best interest of the participant. Nurses felt especially pressured and like reluctant salespeople when working on industry-funded studies where recruitment targets were high (Tinkler et al. , 2018 ).

The review identified some key factors that can affect data collection by nurses: staff designation to the task; study eligibility criteria; characteristics of the study population; accessibility of study data; and whether guidance on data collection processes was clear. It was important for nurses that study documentation was comprehensive and easily understood, and scripted protocols were off-putting for some nurses. Data collection was more challenging, and health and safety risks were more notable for community nurses.

The professional regulatory body for nurses in the United Kingdom, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), stipulates that nurses should practice in accordance with best available evidence and collect, treat and store all research findings befittingly (NMC, 2018 ). Nurse-led research and studies delivered by nurses can propel change. Evidence procured through research moulds the profession of nursing, informing policy and professional decision-making. Cultivating an environment for nurses to flourish in leading, and to participate in and deliver research for patient benefit is a key objective outlined in the chief nursing officer (CNO) for England’s strategic plan for research (National Health Service, 2021 ). Exploring nurses’ experience of delivering research studies in primary care is an important step to understanding how best to support nurses in contributing to the CNO’s strategic plan.

Study limitations

A possible limitation of this review is that it only includes studies written in English, potentially omitting relevant studies and contributions to the subject area.

Our inclusion criteria included publications from the last 20 years, a period of significant changes to nursing roles and the healthcare system. The earlier publications could, therefore, seem less relevant. However, some of the issues identified in the earlier publications remain pertinent today and help to reinforce the relevance of the review. Evidence from the earlier publications exploring the historic experiences of nurses supporting and delivering research studies in primary care should help inform contemporary work moving forward.

Nurses are integral to the delivery of primary care research studies. This review explored the experiences of nurses delivering research studies in primary care and identified potential challenges and facilitators to effective study delivery. The review highlighted the importance of good communication by study teams, timely and study-specific training, and support and understanding from colleagues. Nurses value their relationships with patients and the benefits that research participation can achieve, but some nurses may inadvertently introduce bias when considering patient suitability for trial involvement. Offering nurses protected time to conduct research tasks improves trial recruitment and reduces conflict with competing demands.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge and thank the University of Birmingham for covering manuscript publication costs.

Authors’ contribution

Both authors made substantial contributions to the conception and design of the review as well the collection, analysis and interpretation of data. Both authors have been involved in drafting the manuscript and revising it critically for important intellectual content. Both authors have read and approved of the final manuscript version to be published.

Financial support

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. Funding for the open access charges for the publication of this protocol was provided by the University of Birmingham.

Competing interests

• Aromataris E and Munn Z (eds) (2020) JBI manual for evidence synthesis . Retrieved 19 March 2021 from https://synthesismanual.jbi.global [ Google Scholar ]
• Barnett-Page E and Thomas J (2009) ‘ Methods for the synthesis of qualitative research: a critical review . BMC Medical Research Methodology 9 . doi: 10.1186/1471-2288-9-59. PMID: 19671152; PMCID: PMC3224695. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Barr J and Welch A (2012) Keeping nurse researchers safe: workplace health and safety issues . Journal of Advanced Nursing 68 , 1538–1545. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Boase S, Kim Y, Craven A and Cohn S (2012) Involving practice nurses in primary care research: the experience of multiple and competing demands . Journal of Advanced Nursing 68 , 590–599. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (2018) CASP qualitative checklist. Retrieved 20 August 2021 from https://caspuk.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/CASP-Systematic-Review-Checklist-2018_fillable-form.pdf
• Davies J, Heyman B, Bryar R, Graffy J, Gunnell C, Lamb B and Morris L (2002) The research potential of practice nurses . Health and Social Care in the Community 10 , 370–381. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Duncan RE, Drew SE, Hodgson J and Sawyer SM (2009) Is my mum going to hear this? Methodological and ethical challenges in qualitative health research with young people . Social Science and Medicine 69 , 1691–1699. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Fletcher B, Gheorghe A, Moore D, Wilson S and Damery S (2012) Improving the recruitment activity of clinicians in randomised controlled trials: a systematic review . BMJ Open 2 , e000496. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2011-000496 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gaglio B, Nelson CC and King D (2006) The role of rapport: lessons learned from conducting research in a primary care setting . Qualitative Health Research 16 , 723–734. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gemzoe K, Crawford R, Caress A, McCorkindale S, Conroy R, Collier S, Doward L, Vekaria RM, Worsley S, Leather DA and Irving E (2020) Patient and healthcare professional experiences of the Salford Lung Studies: qualitative insights for future effectiveness trials . Trials 21 . doi: 10.1186/s13063-020-04655-x [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Graffy J, Bower P, Ward E, Wallace P, Delaney B, Kinmonth A-L, Collier D and Miller J (2010) Trials within trials? Researcher, funder and ethical perspectives on the practicality and acceptability of nesting trials of recruitment methods in existing primary care trials . BMC Medical Research Methodology 10 . doi: 10.1186/1471-2288-10-38 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hange D, Björkelund C, Svenningsson I, Kivi M, Eriksson MC and Petersson EL (2015) Experiences of staff members participating in primary care research activities: a qualitative study . International Journal of General Medicine 8 , 143–148. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hernon O, Dalton R and Dowling M (2020) Clinical research nurses’ expectations and realities of their role: a qualitative evidence synthesis . Journal of Clinical Nursing 29 , 667–683. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hyland D and Clarke Moloney M (2016) Spotlight in clinical research nursing . World of Irish Nursing 24 , 52–53. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kyte D, Ives J, Draper H and Calvert M (2016) Current practices in patient-reported outcome (PRO) data collection in clinical trials: a cross-sectional survey of UK trial staff and management . BMJ Open 6 , e012281. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2016-012281 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lamb KA, Backhouse MR and Adderley UJ (2016) A qualitative study of factors impacting upon the recruitment of participants to research studies in wound care – the community nurses’ perspective . Journal of Tissue Viability 25 , 185–188. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Long J, Meethan K, Arundel C, Clarke E, Firth A, Sylvester M and Chetter I (2020) Exploring feedback from research nurses in relation to the design and conduct of a randomised controlled trial of wound care treatments: a sequential, dependent, mixed-methods study . Journal of Tissue Viability 29 , 342–347. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• McNiven A, Boulton M, Locock L and Hinton L (2021) Boundary spanning and identity work in the clinical research delivery workforce: a qualitative study of research nurses, midwives and allied health professionals in the National Health Service, United Kingdom . Health Research Policy and Systems 19 . doi: 10.1186/s12961-021-00722-0 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Mentes JC and Tripp-Reimer T (2002) Barriers and facilitators in nursing home intervention research . Western Journal of Nursing Research 24 , 918–936. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Morgan SE, Occa A, Potter J, Mouton A and Peter ME (2017) “You need to be a good listener”: recruiters’ use of relational communication behaviours to enhance clinical trial and research study accrual . Journal of Health Communication 22 , 95–101. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Newall N, Miller C, Kapp S, Gliddon T, Carville K and Santamaria N (2009) Nurses experience of participating in a randomised control trial in the community . Wound Practice and Research 17 , 24–34. [ Google Scholar ]
• National Health Service (2021) Making research matter: chief nursing officer for England’s strategic plan for research. Retrieved 6 June 2023from https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/B0880-cno-for-englands-strategic-plan-fo-research.pdf
• National Institute for Health and Care Research (2022) NIHR clinical research network primary care strategy. Retrieved 4 May 2022 from https://www.nihr.ac.uk/documents/nihr-clinical-research-network-primary-carestrategy/29999
• National Institute for Health Research. Clinical Research Network (2021) Primary care strategy. Retrieved 10 March 2022 from https://express.adobe.com/page/9fQUnnSp3chTm/
• Nursing & Midwifery Council (2018) The code: professional standards of practice and behaviour for nurses, midwives and nursing. Retrieved 11 April 2023 from https://www.nmc.org.uk/standards/code/
• Potter R, Dale J and Caramlau I (2009) A qualitative study exploring practice nurses’ experience of participating in a primary care–based randomised controlled trial . Journal of Research in Nursing 14 , 439–447. [ Google Scholar ]
• Rait G, Rogers S and Wallace P (2002) Primary care research networks: perspectives, research interests and training needs of members . Primary Health Care Research and Development 3 , 410. doi: 10.1191/1463423602pc087oa [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rose J, Lynn K, Akister J, Maxton F and Redsell SA (2021) Community midwives’ and health visitors’ experiences of research recruitment: a qualitative exploration using the theoretical domains framework . Primary Health Care Research and Development 22 , e5. doi: 10.1017/S1463423621000050 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Shaw S, Macfarlane F, Carter YH and Letley L (2005) Developing primary care research teams a qualitative interview study in UK general practice . Australian Journal of Primary Health 11 , 24–31. [ Google Scholar ]
• Spilsbury K, Petherick E, Cullum N, Nelson A, Nixon J and Mason S (2008) The role and potential contribution of clinical research nurses to clinical trials . Journal of Clinical Nursing 17 , 549–557. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Tinkler L, Smith V, Yiannakou Y and Robinson L (2018) Professional identity and the clinical research nurse: a qualitative study exploring issues having an impact on participant recruitment in research . Journal of Advanced Nursing 74 , 318–328. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• True G, Alexander LB and Richman KA (2011) Misbehaviours of front-line research personnel and the integrity of community-based research . Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics 6 , 3–12. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Young J, Manea-Walley W and Mora N (2009) Practice nurses and research. The Freemantle Primary prevention study . Australian Family Physician 37 , 464–466. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Benedictine College nuns denounce Harrison Butker's speech at their school

John Helton

Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker speaks to the media during NFL football Super Bowl 58 opening night on Feb. 5, 2024, in Las Vegas. Butker railed against Pride month along with President Biden's leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic and his stance on abortion during a commencement address at Benedictine College last weekend. Charlie Riedel/AP hide caption

Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker speaks to the media during NFL football Super Bowl 58 opening night on Feb. 5, 2024, in Las Vegas. Butker railed against Pride month along with President Biden's leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic and his stance on abortion during a commencement address at Benedictine College last weekend.

An order of nuns affiliated with Benedictine College rejected Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison's Butker's comments in a commencement speech there last weekend that stirred up a culture war skirmish.

"The sisters of Mount St. Scholastica do not believe that Harrison Butker's comments in his 2024 Benedictine College commencement address represent the Catholic, Benedictine, liberal arts college that our founders envisioned and in which we have been so invested," the nuns wrote in a statement posted on Facebook .

In his 20-minute address , Butker denounced abortion rights, Pride Month, COVID-19 lockdowns and "the tyranny of diversity, equity and inclusion" at the Catholic liberal arts college in Atchison, Kan.

He also told women in the audience to embrace the "vocation" of homemaker.

"I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you. How many of you are sitting here now about to cross the stage, and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you're going to get in your career?" he asked. "Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world. But I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world."

For many Missouri Catholics, abortion rights means choosing between faith, politics

That was one of the themes that the sisters of Mount St. Scholastica took issue with.

"Instead of promoting unity in our church, our nation, and the world, his comments seem to have fostered division," they wrote. "One of our concerns was the assertion that being a homemaker is the highest calling for a woman. We sisters have dedicated our lives to God and God's people, including the many women whom we have taught and influenced during the past 160 years. These women have made a tremendous difference in the world in their roles as wives and mothers and through their God-given gifts in leadership, scholarship, and their careers."

The Benedictine sisters of Mount St. Scholastica founded a school for girls in Atchinson in the 1860s. It merged with St. Benedict's College in 1971 to form Benedictine College.

Neither Butker nor the Chiefs have commented on the controversy. An online petition calling for the Chiefs to release the kicker had nearly 215,000 signatures as of Sunday morning.

6 in 10 U.S. Catholics are in favor of abortion rights, Pew Research report finds

The NFL, for its part, has distanced itself from Butker's remarks.

"Harrison Butker gave a speech in his personal capacity," Jonathan Beane, the NFL's senior VP and chief diversity and inclusion officer told NPR on Thursday. "His views are not those of the NFL as an organization."

Meanwhile, Butker's No. 7 jersey is one of the league's top-sellers , rivaling those of better-known teammates Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce.

Butker has been open about his faith. The 28-year-old father of two told the Eternal Word Television Network in 2019 that he grew up Catholic but practiced less in high school and college before rediscovering his belief later in life.

His comments have gotten some support from football fan social media accounts and Christian and conservative media personalities .

A video of his speech posted on Benedictine College's YouTube channel has 1.5 million views.

Rachel Treisman contributed to this story.

• Harrison Butker
• benedictine college