Nursing research and responsible partnership in the global setting

In light of the increased research priorities set forth by both national and global funding sources, the goal of this project is to take a step towards deeper understanding of the responsibility of high-resource nurses conducting research in low-resource environments. A secondary goal is to understand the role of local collaboration partners in the development and implementation of research in their setting.

A review of recent nursing research where the primary investigator was from a top-ranking U.S. university and the data collection took place in a low- or middle-income setting.

The literature was examined for two areas of interest: 1) the presence of local partners as authors, and 2) the role of local partners in development of the research question and study design. This review is through the lens of a collaborative work between an American nurse who conducted her doctoral research in sub-Saharan Africa and an African nurse who is a faculty member at a U.S. university. Ten nursing schools were reviewed for faculty involved in global health research. Ninety-nine faculty were reviewed for global interests and thirty-two were found to conduct research in low-resource settings. Inclusion criteria for publications: Authorship of nurse researcher; Data collection in an LMIC; Published between 2013 and 2019; Full-text available.

Systematic or literature review.

Of the abstracts reviewed (N = 248), 141 publications were excluded due to duplicates and research design, for a total of 107 articles included in this review. Seventy-nine percent of publications (N = 85) included local authors, while 84% (N = 90) included local ethical approval. Of publications with local authors, 53% did not state the role played, 27% stated local authors were involved in study conception, 40% stated local authors were involved in data collection/analysis, and 35% stated local authors reviewed/approved the final manuscript.

More than half of published studies did not state the role of their local partners. Data collection/analysis are the major roles reported in the literature. To design more effective local studies and promote positive health outcomes, international partners should be involved in all stages of the research process, particularly study conception, and their roles acknowledged in all publications.