PREFACE
This is the report of the Priority Expert Panel on Community-Based Health Care: Nursing Strategies, one of a series of expert panels constituted by the National Center for Nursing Research (NCNR)1 in conjunction with the development of the National Nursing Research Agenda (NNRA). The development of the NNRA began in January 1988 with a conference to develop broad priorities for the then NCNR. A second conference was held in November 1992 to develop additional priorities. A similar process was followed in both efforts. Approximately 50 nurse scientists with varied areas of expertise attended each conference at the NCNR's invitation. The resulting draft priorities were subsequently reviewed and reconceptualized by the NNRA Steering Committee, a subcommittee of the NINR's National Advisory Council for Nursing Research (NACNR). The Steering Committee is co-chaired by the Director, NINR, and a member of the Council; committee members are drawn from both Council membership and NINR senior staff. The Steering Committee's refinement of the first set of broad priorities resulted in publication of the following seven more specific NINR priority areas: Low Birthweight Mothers and Infants; HIV Infection Prevention and Care; Long-Term Care for Older Adults; Symptom Management; Health Promotion for Older Children and Adolescents; Nursing Informatics Enhancing Patient Care; and Technology Dependency Across the Lifespan. The Steering Committee's refinement of the second set of broad priorities resulted in publication of the following seven additional NINR priority areas: Community-Based Nursing Models; Preventing HIV/AIDS in Women; Preventing Diabetes, Obesity, and Hypertension; Cognitive Impairment; Coping With Chronic Illness; Families At Risk for Violence; and Behavioral Factors Related to Immunosuppression. For each of these areas, a Priority Expert Panel is constituted, charged with developing the priority area in depth, and asked to make recommendations for more specific priorities. Doing so requires that the panels make difficult choices between a number of highly important research areas within the panel's mandated scope. The community-based nursing models priority specified by the 1992 conference on research priorities was refined by the NACNR to include both rural and urban research models. In its deliberations, the Priority Expert Panel convened by the NINR to address this priority refined the focus even further in light of the research literature available and future research needs. The title of this priority was thus changed to Community-Based Health Care: Nursing Strategies, reflecting the panel's emphasis on strategies, rather than models per se, and the need for integrated health care delivery approaches that incorporate nursing strategies. Addressing both rural and urban research needs in this area was a particular challenge. With the concurrence of the Steering Committee, the panel decided to address priorities with respect to all rural populations and to underserved urban populations. To facilitate panel members' decision making, the Steering Committee developed "Criteria for Promising Dimensions." These criteria were revised at the 1992 conference as criteria for choosing problems and issues. According to the revised criteria, priority areas are those in which:
An adequate number of nurse scientists are available or can be trained
in the area of science. The NNRA report presently includes six published volumes. Volume 1, the overview and planning document for the NNRA process, introduces the series. Volumes 2-6 are the reports of the scientific panels completed to date. The six volumes are:
ReferencesBloch, D. (1990). Strategies for setting and implementing the National
Center for Nursing Research priorities. Applied Nursing Research, 3(1),
2-6. |
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