| Learning Objective #1: Analyze current policies and recommendations about translational research | |||
| Learning Objective #2: Evaluate the Translational Theory of Nursing as Process for its potential usefulness as a theoretical link between research and practice in nursing |
Objective: To provide the rubric for translational research by describing a theory of nursing-as-process in order to bridge the theory-practice gap.
Design: The body of nursing research has produced exciting but disparate findings. The task of moving these findings into practice has recently been labeled ‘translational research’; however, this new category of research is poorly defined. At the same time, nursing struggles to define its unique contribution to health care, given the reality that many of it’s daily care activities are shared by other health professionals. Nursing has always viewed theory as the link between research and practice, yet nursing has predominantly produced either grand or practice theories that do not readily meet this need. This presentation describes a translational theory explicating process as the bridge that translates research to practice, that can underpin translational research, and that allows for the identification of concepts that make nursing unique.
Findings: A new level of theory is needed, translational theory, that can link research findings with actual practice. The proposed theory discards the linear, sequential operationalization of nursing process and recognizes nursing-as-process. It is not tasks that identify nursing, but rather the unique, holistic, integrated process of implementing those tasks. Nursing-as-process has three reciprocally linked phases of process: pre-relational, relational and outcome. Nursing actions begin as proactive and deliberative, and become reactive and emergent within the phases of process. Concepts within the Translational Theory of Nursing as Process (TTNP) include time sequencing, spatiality, futurity, regularity and structuralism.
Conclusions and Implications: The concepts and the phases described can be used to link disparate research findings such as pain control studies and studies of family support to the coherent and scholarly practice of nursing. They allow the systematic and integrated application of research to practice and identify nursing’s unique contributions to health care.
Back to Innovations in Research
Back to 14th International Nursing Research Congress
Sigma Theta Tau International
10-12 July 2003