The value of participatory action research in clinical nursing practice

This paper demonstrates the value of participatory action research (PAR) and promotes its use by nurses in clinical practice. PAR has gained popularity in nursing and health-care research, offering a way of developing practice-based knowledge that can improve nursing care. PAR is described in detail: what PAR is, how to use PAR in clinical practice, and the steps in the PAR cycle as applied during an exemplar study in which nurses used PAR to address their concerns and develop, implement and evaluate a model of care in an acute medical ward. The authors advocate PAR as a collaborative means to improve the nursing care for patients in varied clinical practice settings.