Gerontological Research Is It Useful for Nursing Practice?

Abstract

The potential usefulness to gerontological nursing practice of nursing as well as non-nursing research was studied. The empirical phase of nursing research was also compared with that of medical, behavioral science, and multidisciplinary research. Although the quantity of nursing research reviewed was small, nearly 80% was judged to be potentially useful to the practice of gerontological nursing. About one third of the non-nursing research was judged potentially useful. These findings are relevant to all nurses, indicating the value on non-nursing as well as nursing research to nursing practice. Overall, the design of nursing research compared favorably to the design of non-nursing research.

A comparative review of gerontological nursing citation data

“…nursing, geriatric medicine) or adjacent (e.g. gerontology, social work) fields, the literature tends to be multi‐disciplinary and many journals, as a result, are either specialised or biomedical journals. For example, in his compilation of geriatrics journals indexed in medline , Roberts noted the dispersion of these journals into several subspecialties.…”

“…While some existing sources such as Magazines for Libraries and the Master Guide to Authoritative Information Resources in the Health Sciences provide annotated information of specialised journals, it has been noted that published English‐language bibliometric studies conducted about the quality and impact of journals specialising in gerontological nursing are under‐represented . The aim of this comparative review was to inform librarians, nurses and other health practitioners of the major journals in gerontological nursing.…”