[Nurses and research: contents and methods. Premise and guide to the use of this issue. 1. Why a special issue for...

For the first time in its history, this journal assumes the unusual form of a monograph: the issue is dedicated to the problems of research methodology, as it applies to the nursing context and activities. The purpose and the contents which are developed along the eight "chapters" can be summarised as follows: 1. It is widely recognised that health care systems are undergoing a profound and rapid transformation phase, which is obviously affecting the nursing profession and roles. To minimize the very real risk of being passive observers of the changes, a propositive strategy based on diffuse and intense research activities (aiming at describing, anticipating, assessing, experimenting changes and hypotheses) appears to be a priority choice (besides the more classical and needed institutional battles and arrangements). 2. Since its very beginning (back 15 years ago), this journal had adopted among its main objectives and distinctive features, the promotion of a research oriented mentality in a profession which (mainly, but not exclusively in Italy) has been characterised more in terms of executive and basically dependent tasks. The key thesis all over the years has been that, to be relevant for the whole profession, research should not be conceived as a separate or élite area of interest but it should be as close as possible (in its scope and methods), to the routine activities of the majority of the nurses. 3. The years long experience has produced (both through the materials which have been published, and the training initiatives which the Rdl has promoted) an important body of concepts and suggestions, which appear to be possibly useful to integrate the existing standard literature dedicated to research methods and designs. 4. The structure chosen for the overall organisation of the issue tries to comply to this "experimental" background: after a first part focused on the close articulation between the conceptual and historical specificities of nursing research (chapter 1 and 2), the more traditional themes of research textbooks are developed as components and expression of a process which suggests, the exigences and possibilities of an "empowerment" of the profession, with respect to its technical tasks and its institutional responsibilities (see chapters 3 to 6). The last chapters concentrate on the two apparently opposite trends and challenges, of both institutional changes and methodological exigencies and evolutions; on the one side, the re-discovery of the "old" qualitative - narrative competences and resources; on the other side the requirements of a health structure which is increasingly centered on administrative-managerial criteria and rules. 5. Coherently with the roots in the concrete experiences which has led to this issue, each chapter tries not to be a repetition of general principles and definitions, but to develop around real-life situations and cases, in order to provide "explicit" framework of application for the definitions and the methodological instruments. 6. A last (possibly interesting) characteristic of the issue, is the fact that it has been conceived, and it is formally presented and proposed (see chapter 1) as a "work in progress". The text is formally offered to the readers-users as a draft on which to work actively: observations, comments, integrations are requested and stimulated. Over a six month period, a collective writing project is launched so that the preparation of a "final" methodological text could become in itself a participatory (and expectedly didactic and rewarding) research activity.