Nursing Research Priorities

Theory 7
Student’s Name
Institution
Theory 7
Nursing Research Priorities
In its 2011 strategic plan, the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) has emphasized and prioritized five key nursing research areas. Specifically, the NINR plan involves a focus on (NINR, 2011):
1 Health promotion and disease prevention
2 Quality of life improvement through symptom management
3 Improvement of palliative and end-of-life care
4 Innovation in science and practice
5 Development of nurse scientists
I agree with these priorities because they address some of the most relevant issues in healthcare today. Research in these five key areas will ensure nurses are using current evidence-based strategies in health promotion and disease prevention, palliative and end-of-life care, and symptom management. Through innovation research, the NINR will also ensure that nurses can apply and incorporate innovative approaches in their practices to enhance the delivery of care. Finally, the development of nurse scientists will ensure that specific nurses are working to generate new knowledge to support evidence-based practice.
The nursing research priorities will push nursing researchers to focus on specific areas that have the greatest impact on population health. These priorities provide nursing researchers with a guideline of issues that are considered more important to solve. According to Higgins et al. (2019), research priorities allow researchers to focus on issues that are considered highly important so that they can provide solutions and eliminate uncertainties. Researchers can concentrate their efforts on targeted issues or areas to ensure that evidence-based solutions for the specific target areas are provided before moving to the next issues. The priorities will also guide nursing researchers on research expenditure to ensure optimal usage of research funding.
A practice is considered evidence-based if it incorporates three key elements. These elements are; 1) the best available evidence, 2) clinical expertise, and 3) patient values, needs, and preferences (Linsley et al., 2019). To ensure that the best available evidence has been integrated into a practice, research findings must be appraised and synthesized before they can be applied in practice. According to Linsley et al. (2019), systematic reviews are the gold standard for the best available evidence. Clinical expertise must also be incorporated into practice to make it evidence-based. This clinical expertise included the knowledge and reasoning of healthcare professionals based on their training and experience. Further, each patient has unique needs, values, and preferences that must be considered when providing an intervention (Linsley et al., 2019). A practice cannot be evidence-based if it fails to consider and integrate these unique aspects of a patient. All these elements ensure that healthcare providers provide quality, safe, and patient-centered care.
In evidence-based practice (EBP), quality ensures that the best and safe evidence is incorporated into practice. The drive for quality in clinical and nursing care occurs through EBP, and as such, the two are interrelated (Linsley et al., 2019). Without the need to improve the quality of patient care and outcomes, there would be no need to focus on EBP. Also, without EBP, there would be no significant improvements in the quality of patient care and outcomes since new and best evidence for interventions would not be incorporated into practice. As such, quality enhances EBP in healthcare.
Proposal
Based on the research priorities identified by the NINR, health promotion and disease prevention are at the top. Using disease prevention as a guide, I propose research on the impact of hand hygiene on preventing health-associated infections.
Impact of hand hygiene on healthcare-associated infections
Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are infections that are absent at the time of admission but develop in the course of a hospital or other healthcare facility stay (Monegro et al., 2021). They pose a risk to patient’s health as they threaten patient safety and affect the quality of care. According to Haque et al. (2018), in the United States, about 1.7 million patients develop HAIs, and about 98,000 patients die due to complications from HAIs each year. In addition, HAIs are associated with increased hospital stays and the high cost of healthcare. As such, the prevention of HAIs is paramount in any healthcare facility that admits patients to improve patient outcomes and reduce the costs associated with the treatment of HAIs. One of the simplest yet effective approaches to reducing HAIs is hand hygiene. The World Health Organization (...