Madness in our methods: nursing research, scientific epistemology

This paper is a critique of some research methods evident in contemporary nursing literature. The arguments derive from critical-feminist, humanist and ethical perspectives. As a consequence of investigating specific aspects of scientific method, an approach to research that is congruent with values intrinsic to an holistic approach to nursing practice is articulated. Such methodologies also render problematic with status quo power relations between nurses and other health professionals, as well as between nurses and patients. The central themes in this paper are: the absence of overt conceptual frameworks; an avoidance of complex social contexts within which research subjects live; an apparent lack of empathy; and an apolitical articulation of research problems and data analyses. All four of these difficulties may be traced to scientific methodology by many researchers. Most nurse researchers may not actually adhere to this technique, but I propose that they have been informed by belief systems associated with scientific methodology and that these have dire consequences for the discipline of nursing. A key argument is that the apparent lack of conceptual frameworks in the majority of nursing research is due to the epistemology, which therefore provides a pre-existing, non-declared conceptual framework, that is incorporated into the research by drawing upon scientific methodology. A further argument is that scientific, or scientistic, ways of approaching situations are antithetical to nursing values and to constructive social change for the benefit of patients, nursing and nurses.