Use of nursing models in pediatric nursing research: a decade of review

Systematic analysis of published nursing research is not new, but the incorporation of theory into research has not been separately evaluated, and pediatric nursing research has not been evaluated in its entirety for nearly two decades. A review of the use of nursing models in 302 pediatric nursing research articles published between 1980 and 1989 was conducted. Criteria developed by Silva (1986) to examine the theoretical basis of nursing practice research were used for this analysis. Nursing models were used as the theoretical framework in 17 investigations. According to Silva's criteria, the use of nursing models in these studies could be classified as follows: 6 minimal, 8 insufficient, and 3 adequate. This analysis produced results similar to those of previous analyses, finding that scant numbers of studies actually test nursing theory.