Defining Research Funding Priorities: Emergency Nurses Association Foundation

Establishing research priorities provides focus and direction for limited resources among organizations and increasing impact in a focused area. The Emergency Nurses Association (ENA) Foundation sought to identify research priorities to guide funding decisions in its extramural grants program.

A modified Delphi research strategy was used to build consensus among ENA members and key leaders to determine research focus areas. Two Delphi rounds were conducted. In the first round, 81 emergency nurses participated in providing a list of potential research foci. In the second round, 221 emergency nurse leaders recommended which research topics should be prioritized. Descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentages) were calculated for each research topic. The topics were clustered together and rank ordered by frequency/percentage.

Eight research priorities were identified: emergency department overcrowding, workplace violence, nurse well-being, appropriate use of the emergency department, new graduate training, mental health care, disaster training, and diversity, equity, and inclusion research.

These identified research priorities offer direction for determining ENA Foundation funding priorities. In addition, the research priorities provide strategic direction to emergency nurse researchers to promote a rich depth of research that can make a meaningful impact to science and emergency nursing practice.