Purpose: Research in rural areas presents special challenges for sampling and recruitment. Examples of considerations include smaller sampling population, privacy concerns, and the rural context. The purpose of this article is to discuss the results of sampling and recruitment strategies within this study. Sample: Nurses form a central hub of health care in rural communities. However, little is known about the lived experience of nurses serving in this capacity. This study explored stories of nurses in a six-county area of three adjoining states in rural South Central Appalachia. Method: Recruitment for the study was completed using state boards of nursing social marketing strategies and snowball sampling. Findings: Sampling and recruitment efforts enlisted 15 participants. The sample was deemed representative of the population as participants represented diverse employment contexts, education preparation levels, licensure duration, and multiple generations. Conclusions: Understanding implications of rural setting and cultural context are critical to successful recruitment and sampling. Privacy considerations may still be concerning, however, multiple de-identification strategies serve to help lessen this risk. Social marketing strategies failed to recruit the needed number of participants secondary to the fact that participants from only one state were recruited in this manner. Smaller population pool limitations were eased by snowball sampling, an approved recruitment method in qualitative research. Future researchers should be cognizant of the influence of rurality norms and cultural context on recruitment and sampling efforts. Social marketing proved less successful than snowball sampling strategies. Further research is needed to develop best practice for rural recruitment and sampling via social marketing. Finally, time and resource commitment for participation can be a barrier. Flexibility in scheduling interviews, location of interview sites, and the availability of audio/phone interviews served to facilitate agreement to participate. Key words: rural, nursing, Appalachia, research, sampling, recruitment
Hospitals as research environments are crucial in advancing evidence-based practice and translational research. The authors discuss issues related to hospital-based nursing research such as institutional review board approval, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, structure, unit characteristics, and nurse staffing as well as research-related issues such as study purpose and design, participant recruitment, and research personnel. Strategies and suggestions for nurse executives to assist researchers in overcoming recruitment challenges are presented.Nursing research provides evidence for best practices by offering answers to the questions raised by nurses in clinical and community settings. An active nursing research program in healthcare organizations encourages all levels of nursing personnel to find answers to clinical questions and incorporate the findings into clinical practice. Although the intended outcome of an active nursing research program is quality care, there is considerable variation among organizations in building and conducting such programs. Some organizations limit nursing research to dissemination of research findings to clinical staff (1,2). Others, such as those that have achieved American Nurses Credentialing Center Magnet status and have active nursing research programs (3), use Donabedian principles of structure and process to evaluate quality (4).
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.