Identifying mental health nursing research priorities: A Delphi study.

Abstract

Engaging in research and using evidence based practice are essential for mental health nurses to provide quality nursing care to consumers and families. This paper reports on a Delphi study that identified the top ten mental health nursing research priorities at one area health service in Australia servicing a population of 840,000 people. Initially 390 research questions were identified by nurses and these were then reduced to 56 broader questions. Finally, the top ten questions were ranked in order of importance. The priority questions were clinically and professionally focused and included research into the delivery and organisation of mental health services and the need to design and evaluate new practice paradigms for nurses in the primary care setting. The mental health knowledge and skill set of graduates from Australian comprehensive nursing programs along with improved recruitment and retention of graduates in mental health were also identified priority areas for research.

Nursing research priorities based on CINAHL database: A scoping review

“…In addition to the previously described reports and strategy plans, several studies on research priorities in different fields of nursing have been published in scientific databases. Many of these studies have applied the Delphi technique with a varying number of survey rounds to define the priorities (Cowman et al, 2012;Wynaden et al, 2014). Furthermore, the topics of the research priority studies vary from pressure injuries (Haesler, Carville, & Haesler, 2018) to children's nursing (Brenner et al, 2014) and mental health nursing (Wynaden et al, 2014).…”

“…Many of these studies have applied the Delphi technique with a varying number of survey rounds to define the priorities (Cowman et al, 2012;Wynaden et al, 2014). Furthermore, the topics of the research priority studies vary from pressure injuries (Haesler, Carville, & Haesler, 2018) to children's nursing (Brenner et al, 2014) and mental health nursing (Wynaden et al, 2014). Despite the considerable number of research priority publications, limited efforts have been made to understand the big picture of nursing research priorities worldwide and, thus, to describe the essential topics of current research in nursing.…”

“…Regarding the second domain, nursing research is prioritized focusing on the following clinical areas: paediatric nursing (Brenner et al, 2014;Downing, Knapp, Muckaden, Fowler-Kerry, & Marston, 2015;Sawin et al, 2012), critical care (Deutschman et al, 2012;Olson et al, 2012), emergency nursing (Hansoti et al, 2017), mental health (Wynaden et al, 2014), oncology nursing (Jarrett et al, 2013;Knobf et al, 2015;Lee, Chung, Chun, Oh, & Cho, 2013;Majidi et al, 2017;Maree, Herbert, & Huiskamp, 2017;Matthews, Danaher Hacker, Otte, & Dean, 2018;Mayer, 2015;Medlow & Patterson, 2015), nephrology nursing (Hewitson, 2014) and medical-surgical nursing (Davis et al, 2016). In terms of paediatric nursing, the palliative care of paediatric population is one of the topics that needs more attention in nursing research.…”

Delphi Panels: Research Design, Procedures, Advantages, and Challenges

“…As experienced in the Rivera (2013) dissertation and the Wynaden et al (2014) study, the number of panel members participating in each round does not have to remain constant throughout the entire process. It can vary in a number of ways: members can drop out or skip a round and return later, or members can skip the initial round but join a subsequent one, to name just two.…”

“…In the case of more complex studies that generate extensive lists of alternatives for panel consideration, studies like the Wynaden et al (2014) effort that narrowed mental health nursing research priorities might not use either of the above two hypothetical processes. While first two rounds in their study involved invitations sent to all nurses in Western Australia, the final round involved more stringent screening criteria in order to achieve consensus within a reasonable number of iterations.…”