Research - Dissemination: Nursing

Nurse Jeong works in a large cardiac rehabilitation center and just completed a mixed-methods research study on the prevalence of depression in clients diagnosed with heart failure. Through use of a quantitative survey, he found that depression occurred in 20% of the study’s participants. Nurse Jeong’s qualitative data supported his survey results by uncovering themes such as, “overwhelming fatigue” and “loss of independence.” Nurse Jeong brings the results of his study to the nurse researcher, Sonia, who says, “I see you’re now ready to share these important findings with the healthcare community! I would be happy to help guide you in this process.” Nurse Jeong and Nurse Sonia will use what they know about disseminating research findings to communicate Nurse Jeong’s research findings with a larger audience.

Okay, so dissemination is when a researcher communicates the findings of their research with others. In nursing research, findings can be shared with physicians, policy makers, fellow researchers, community leaders, as well as other nurses, with the goal of enhancing knowledge and promoting quality care in a particular discipline. However, it usually takes some time before research findings will result in an actual effect on clinical practice. One way to disseminate research findings is through a research report, or a written description of a completed study. By documenting study findings in a research report, nurses and other healthcare professionals can access and share this information efficiently and effectively.

A research report generally contains four main sections: introduction, methods, results, and discussion. First, the introduction is where the background, significance and aim of the research question is identified along with any gaps in the existing literature. For example, Nurse Jeong’s introduction included his research aim: to describe the prevalence of depression in clients with heart failure. In addition, the introduction can also include the theoretical framework or conceptual definitions guiding the research.

The next is the methods section, which is where the overarching research design is described. Since Nurse Jeong performed a mixed-methods study, he described both the quantitative and qualitative methodology he used.

After the methods section comes the results. This section contains the description of the sample characteristics, such as age, gender, race, and ethnicity, sometimes depicted on graphs. The findings of the data analysis will also be described in the results section.