Nursing research in Canadian hospitals

This article describes a 1986 survey of Canadian teaching hospitals to determine the status and stage of nursing research studies, thereby providing comparative data for examining current nursing research endeavours. Most numerous were studies of patient care responses whereas quality assurance and nursing education projects were fewer in number. The majority of studies were in the beginning stages of the nursing research process, and only one-third had received external funding. The number of studies reported, and the involvement of several categories of nursing staff and nursing units in these studies confirms that clinically based nursing research activities are a reality for more than half of Canadian teaching hospitals.