Factors influencing nurses' participation in clinical research

Clinical research is necessary for developing nursing's body of knowledge and improving the quality of gastroenterology nursing care. The support and participation of nursing staff are crucial to conducting interventional research. Identification of characteristics of nurses and their work settings that facilitate or impede participation in research is needed. The purpose of this descriptive correlational study was to examine the effect of personal and professional characteristics and attitudes about nursing research on staff nurses' participation in a clinical nursing research project. A questionnaire measuring nurses' attitudes, perceptions of availability of support, and research use was distributed to staff nurses working on an endoscopy lab and two same-day surgery units where a nursing research study had recently been conducted. Investigator-developed items measured nurses' attitudes about the utility and feasibility of the interventions tested in the original study. A total of 36 usable questionnaires comprised the sample. Factor analysis of the two questionnaires resulted in three-factor (Importance of Research, Interest in Research, and Environment Support of Research) and two-factor (Value of Cognitive-Behavioral Interventions [CBIs] and Participation in Study) solutions, respectively. There were no statistically significant differences in mean scores for the five factors between nurses who did (n = 19) and those who did not (n = 17) participate in the original study. The Participation in Research Factor was significantly negatively correlated with years in nursing (r = -.336, p < .05) and positively correlated with the importance of research factor (r = .501, p < .01). Importance of research was negatively correlated with years in nursing (r = -.435, p < .01) and positively correlated with value of CBI (r = .439, p < .01) and participation in study (r = .501, p < .01). Findings from the study will contribute to the body of knowledge about factors that facilitate or impede staff nurses' involvement in research. This knowledge will be useful for nurse researchers planning intervention studies to forecast and foster staff nurse involvement in their projects. Findings may also be useful to nurse managers, nurse educators, and staff development personnel in assessing and promoting staff nurses' involvement in research.