Objective: Recently publicized breaches in research integrity have increased the interest in the variables and mechanisms that promote research integrity and prevent scientific misconduct. The United States Office of Research Integrity has stated that lack of empirical research on research integrity impedes the ability of government, institutions, and disciplines to develop systems and policies which promote research integrity and effectively deal with misconduct. A critical review of the literature was conducted to examine the existing conceptual and empirical understandings of research integrity and the practices that promote research integrity and discourage scientific misconduct in schools of nursing.
Design: An integrated qualitative review of research integrity literature was conducted.
Population, Sample, Setting, Years: Nursing research on research integrity, scientific misconduct, and research practices conducted between 1980-2001 accessible through Cumulative Index for Nursing and Allied Health (CINAHL) database was reviewed. Research integrity literature from the social sciences that examined personal or organizational influences on research integrity was also reviewed. National and international conference proceedings were included in the review.
Concepts or Variables Studied Together: Research integrity, scientific integrity, and scientific misconduct were examined.
Methods: Electronic databases CINAHL and OCLC FirstSearch were used to locate literature on research integrity. Keywords and subject headings were; scientific misconduct, research ethics, research integrity, and research misconduct. The United States Department of Health and Human Services Office of Research Integrity website was used to identify and locate national conference proceedings and additional resources.
Findings: The body of empirical knowledge about research integrity and the factors that promote research integrity in nursing remains small. This is due in part to the absence of a research integrity conceptual model that could be used to integrate current research findings and provide direction for new research. In this paper, an existing financial internal control model is proposed as a framework to conceptualize and study relationships among the research integrity variables found in the literature. The focus of the model is the assessment and analysis of risks to research integrity at the organizational level and the promotion of research practices that decrease risks to integrity.
The interrelated model components are a) internal control environment, b) risk assessment, c) internal control activities, d) monitoring, and e) information and communication. The model components are building blocks that comprise an environment of integrity at the organizational level. The internal control environment includes the university and nursing school's philosophy and management style, as well as the integrity, ethical values and competence of the individuals within the environment. Risk assessment is the identification and analysis of relevant risks to maintaining research integrity in the school and university, such as internal and external pressures to publish, conflict of interests, promotion and tenure policies and use of research teams. Internal control activities are the nursing school and university policies and procedures in place to decrease the risk to breaches in scientific integrity. These activities include the use of best research practices within the organization, e.g. responsible authorship policies, use of peer review, presence of mentoring, research ethics education, and data sharing and management policies. Monitoring of research integrity encompasses the Federal regulations and oversight that are in place for identifying and reporting scientific misconduct at the university level. Information and communication within and outside the university and school of nursing allow the process components of the model to be fully operationalized. The internal control environment and internal control activities are proposed as the process components having the greatest impact on research integrity and when adequately developed, decrease the need for external monitoring and oversight.
Conclusions: Conceptual models provide structure to interpret existing research findings and provide direction for generating new empirical research. The internal control model proposed in this paper provides an integrated conceptualization of research integrity that can be used to integrate existing research findings and generate new empirical knowledge of research integrity. Schools of nursing can also use the model to design, implement, and evaluate systems that promote research integrity.
Implications: The research contributions of nurse scientists are critical to improving the public's health and to the achievement of the goals of Healthy People 2010. Therefore, research findings generated through nursing research must be accurate, reliable, and conducted according to the highest professional standards. Understanding research integrity and the variables that influence researchers to adhere to the highest professional standards is critical to the protection of human participants in nursing research and to the advancement of nursing science.
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