The research potential of practice nurses: what contribution to primary health care research?

Primary health care (PHC) is at the core of effective, sustainable population healthcare. Although PHC research has been described as the missing link in the development of high-quality, evidence-based health care for populations, research outputs have been disappointingly low in Australia and overseas. This paper reviews the current status of PHC research in Australia, particularly relating to funding and research capacity building needed to conduct high quality and relevant research with significant transfer potential for practice and policy. It explores the likely contribution of research-trained practice nurses (R-T PNs) as study coordinators, rather than as independent nurse researchers, although this is certainly possible, and proposes adapting a successful secondary care research model for use in the PHC research setting.