Use of research by staff nurses:organizational support and expectations

Colleen Marie Varcoe
1994
This descriptive correlational study was designed to describe British Columbian staff nurses' reports of organizational expectations and support for research use, nurses' own expectations of their use of research, and actual research use by staff nurses. The study was further designed to investigate relationships between nurses' use of research and their expectations of themselves, their employers' expectations, and their reports of organizational support for research utilization. The study
more » ... ared the levels and relationships between these research predictor and outcome variables for groups of diploma and baccalaureate prepared nurses working in hospitals of different sizes. Crane's (1989) conceptual framework for research utilization guided this study. A stratified random sample (n=450) of nurses with diploma and baccalaureate education was selected from staff nurses working in medical-surgical and critical care areas of hospitals of different sizes in British Columbia. A questionnaire modified from the work of Clarke (1991) was mailed. Responses were obtained from 183 nurses (42%), a sample comprised of 45% diploma educated nurses and 54% baccalaureate educated nurses. The sampling strategy also resulted in representation from hospitals of different sizes which were categorized as small (<250 beds), medium (250-499 beds) and large (>500 beds). The nurses in the sample had very positive attitudes toward research and had high expectations of themselves to use research in practice. There were no differences between educational groups regarding interest in research and expectations, but the baccalaureate nurses held a significantly higher value for research and had more research experience than the diploma nurses. The nurses' opinions of their organizations varied considerably with organizational size, with the support and expectations for research utilization generally increasing with hospital size. Opinions of the research climate were generally low and the number of infrastructures [...]
doi:10.14288/1.0099111 fatcat:qdhlu7mudjelxktjwppgfrae6a