Abstract
Like other health-related disciplines, nursing is under pressure to demonstrate the value of research and its impact on clinical practice. Research led by nurses has evolved over the last two decades due to positive research cultures in nursing, the availability of funding, the development of new nursing programs, and leadership support. However, variations in nursing research productivity are reported across countries.
The role of the cancer nurse has rapidly shifted from routine bedside care to more advanced practice specialist nurses being responsible for performing invasive procedures, screening for cancer, and providing high-quality care based on evidence-based research. These cancer nursing research programs aim to improve the quality of care and services provided to cancer patients by using a research-based approach. Nursing leaders also recognize the need to combine practice with research since nursing research significantly contributes to improving and developing cancer patient care.
Previous work presents factors influencing nurse-led cancer research development, however, it is important to consider the future direction of nurse-led cancer research, in terms of what has been done frequently, areas of care that need more research attention, and structural issues that may be endemic in nurse-led cancer research. There is a dearth of research evaluating nurse-led cancer research trends which is important in developing research agendas, justifying research investment and building research capacity. Maree et al summarised cancer nursing studies led by African nurses between 2005 and 2014. They found that African nurses published only 50 cancer-related research papers in that time and most adopted a quantitative approach. Sun and Larson also assessed nurse led research conducted in Africa and identified 73 research papers from five countries; most adopted a qualitative stance, which is a common approach in the early development of nursing that focuses on patient experiences through small scale studies. The only review that considered worldwide cancer nursing publications was conducted by Molassiotis et al, covering the years 1994 to 2003. They reported that most published research originated from high-income countries, and two-thirds of the studies adopted a quantitative approach, suggesting that the specialty has used a positivist approach as a research paradigm to develop its evidence-base. Since then, there have been many developments in cancer nursing that necessitate another assessment of the trends and gaps in nurse-led cancer research to provide more direction for future research. This would be useful for funders, research teams and organizations to inform the focus of research efforts where gaps exist. Thus, this study sought to provide a comprehensive, up-to-date synthesis of all nurse-led cancer research publications across both children and adults. Specific objectives for the analysis included:
a) Provide an overview of the characteristics of papers published in terms of type and focus;
b) Conduct a performance analysis in terms of trends, key journals for publication, co-authorship or most productive institutions, and
c) Conduct a keyword analysis to identify research foci and changes of such foci over time.