[A research program of the nurses in Calabria]

On the basis of results of an inquiry on the nurses' perception of avoidable patients' problems, three research areas have been identified: a. the management of pharmacological therapy by nurses (including specifically: the use of drugs in solution, the control of pain, the monitoring of adverse drug reactions, antiinfective prophylaxis, the occasions of controversy between doctors and nurses related to therapeutic problems); b. the difference between pain perception by patients and its evaluation by nurses, to see whether and on the basis of which variables do differences exist; c. the terminal patient, mainly with respect to the evaluation of its nursing problems and to the characteristics which enter the definition of "terminal status". The production of the study protocols can be considered a true research process, and they are presented in the present paper.