Making Nursing Visible in General Practice: Responsible Action Research as an Approach to Developing Nurse-Sensitive...

Area of Science:

• Nursing
• Health Services Research
• Primary Care

Background:

• Healthcare systems prioritize measurement and accountability, yet key nursing dimensions, especially in primary care, are poorly captured.
• General practice nursing involves complex, relational, and preventive care, making external metrics often unsuitable.
• The significant contribution of general practice nurses remains largely invisible in current healthcare data systems.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a framework for developing nurse-sensitive metrics in general practice.
• To advocate for an ethical and methodological process that accurately represents nursing contributions.
• To enhance the visibility and recognition of general practice nursing work.

Main Methods:

• A Responsible Action Research approach, integrating Appreciative Inquiry and the Quality Action Research Checklist.
• Collaborative inquiry involving general practice nurses, general practitioners, patients, and practice administrators.
• Focus on practice-engaged knowledge generation to articulate tacit dimensions of nursing quality.

Main Results:

• Demonstrates how collaborative inquiry can surface and articulate crucial aspects of nursing quality.
• Highlights the importance of transparency, reflexivity, and accountability in metric development.
• Provides a methodological approach to generate meaningful nurse-sensitive indicators.

Conclusions:

• Metric development is an ethical and methodological process, not just a technical task.
• Responsible Action Research offers a way to make nursing work visible while preserving its complexity.
• This approach contributes to better understanding and valuing of nursing contributions in primary care settings.