What is nursing research?
The important and timely decisions that must be made to successfully care for patients is fundamental to the practice of nursing. Nurse scientists know these pressures and challenges, having lived it. This is precisely what is beautiful about the research skills nurses bring to higher education and research in general. National funding agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) and Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) routinely include doctoral-level nurse researchers on grant review and study section teams.
The National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) priorities and research mission reflect the uniqueness of what nurses are experiencing and dealing with every day across a broad spectrum ranging from the beginning of life to childhood, adolescence, and adulthood to aging, end-of-life and palliative care. According to the NINR website, the research institute “supports basic and clinical research that develops the knowledge to build the scientific foundation for clinical practice, prevent disease and disability, manage and eliminate symptoms caused by illness, and enhance end-of-life and palliative care." Texas A&M College of Nursing research scientists’ areas of interest align with all of NINR’s priorities. Of course, as with all research, a big priority for each of us is translating those findings into generalizable knowledge for the next generation.
Our nurse scientists collaborate with faculty in academic units across the Texas A&M University campus and system while working with state and federal funding agencies, health foundations and health systems to publish their findings for the next generation.
Examples of current nursing research underway include:
- Adverse childhood experiences (ACE's)
- Bruise study (light detection of bruises in various skin tones)
- Cancer screening, prevention and education
- Cardiac care and congenital heart disease
- Chronic disease self-management—Including diabetes self-management
- Domestic violence prevention & intimate partner violence
- End of life & palliative care
- Forensic nursing
- GLBT—Challenges, access, & depression
- Human trafficking
- Maternal-child health—preterm birth
- Post-menopausal symptoms and blood glucose transport
- Post-traumatic stress disorder
- Prenatal genetic testing
- Racial & ethnic disparities
- Rural disparities
- Sexual assault examination—state-of-the art training and education