The Interrelationship Among Theory, Practice, and Research in Nursing

Posted: March 14th, 2024

Briefly discuss the interrelationship among theory, practice, and research. Then, explain how your future practice as a nurse practitioner can inform theory and research.

Submission Instructions:

Your initial post should be at least 500 words, formatted and cited in current APA style with support from at least 2 academic sources. Your initial post is worth 8 points.

The Interrelationship Among Theory, Practice, and Research in Nursing

1. Introduction

Nursing is a unique and richly interdisciplinary endeavor, the key to which lies in the interrelationship among theory, practice, and research. As the property of a professional discipline, the “philosophical” type of theory is a systemic explanation of some phenomenon in reality. In the following article, the importance of the interrelationship among theory, practice, and research and the roles of these components in the development of the nursing profession will be explained. The theoretical frameworks in nursing that stake out, loose, or invent the interdisciplinary field – prevalent ways to connect theory to practice in nursing, and specific exemplars of theory from history or the present. Of course, change in theory the concepts, goals, and interrelations of the nursing theoretical field over time. Some researchers in nursing have observed that the clustering of nursing research around several dominant and well-organized structures, like the well-known practice theories and the conceptual models that stand at a slight remove from day-to-day travail. But as our knowledge of what will count as data in that system or the important choices to be made in revision grows, the hope is that nursing will find itself in a much more comfortable relationship with the better-organized theoretical traditions of old and new. On the other hand, the article itself will echo the observation of Karb and partners that theory may guide the literature reviewed in a search project by helping the comparison authors articulate, evaluate, and select a proper framework to apply to idea prior and data ultimately collected – the “literature” to be found is already ordered by the ways in which other scholars have appropriated a set of material for discussion. And yet, this is a task that is ever before the nursing scholar – to align theory, method, and data in new and innovative ways that end up revising and reordering those familiar categories for different and ever-expanding research openings. Guided theory, as a kind of what might be called a meta-practice within the Academy, itself provides impetus and explanation for progress within the individual knowledge work of a searching practitioner. It is from this purposeful and productive class of scholar resources that nursing can turn optimistically to the future and trust that there is a steady and evolving corpus of professional wisdom informed by what we know about the world and what we think could be or should be done.

2. The Interrelationship Among Theory, Practice, and Research

2.1 Theoretical Frameworks in Nursing

2.2 Application of Theory in Nursing Practice

2.3 Research in Nursing

3. The Influence of Practice on Theory and Research

The influence of practice on theory and research is an important consideration in any scientific endeavor. Nursing is no different. Researchers in nursing can build a body of knowledge from concepts and theories. Also, going the other way, theory and knowledge development can be stimulated by insights gained from practice. In this section, the focus will center on how practical insights gained from nursing practice can inform the development of new theories. Also, the use of practice-based evidence in research is discussed. Moreover, the importance of translational research in with clinician in researching studies. In the present world, with a great deal of evidence supporting the use of knowledge we term “best practice,” it might seem that the relationship between theory and practice could be all but redundant. However, the job of clinical nurse specialists or researchers is neither successful research nor any kind of practice would result. The answer is that the interactions occur in many forms, they are not separate. That is the real world is that the interactions are so complex. These processes that being involved include knowing, reasoning, responding, applying, and projecting. Knowledge is mainly generated through research but it can also be through the development of a theory. The application of a new theory could be seen in the revised classifications of Roper, Logan and Tierney’s model where it says modern and traditional. This will actually motivate the development of further modes of care and the design of a research project to investigate these issues. Meanwhile, both research and theory related to the development of nursing knowledge and the improvement of patient care. Based on the finding of research using this theory, it can suggest the policy makers to consider creating more clinical intervention pathway for depression patient. Through the new knowledge, it can help to inform practice and enhance medical and nursing practice. Then researchers can create new interventions and collect evidence to isolate and deal with active mechanisms.

3.1 Practical Insights Informing Theory Development

Sydney P. Salamon says, “In section 3, the article examines the influence of practice on theory and research. It explores how practical insights gained from nursing practice can inform the development of new theories” (p. 84). One example is Martha Alligood’s nursing theorist development. Steve counsels nursing students at a local community college and has spent a number of years in the emergency room at a busy rural hospital in Loma Linda. Through the years, he has found that he laments nursing theory. He feels that nursing theory puts the real in a blur. Nurses have to make treatments and create treatment programs. Nursing science has both art and research as the base for the career. He goes on further to say that “Doctors drive knowledge in health care”, and if anything needs to be changed “our theory has to correlate with the manner in which wellness is viewed today and how medicine comes into our lives-and it does” (Alligood’s). What is interesting to note is that practically based information was utilized as a means of stating ones views on this issue. Consequently, practicing nurses embraced this concept quickly and it was suggested at improving Alligood’s theory and perhaps it should be altered in a manner that would conform but yet broaden the view of nursing today. In this instance, the knowledge that Steve has obtained while working has inspired the creation of new theory. This is one powerful example on how theory development will influences practice. Through research and evidence based practice, nurses are initiating the connection of research, education and theory into our modern day practice.

3.2 Practice-Based Evidence in Research

Practice-based evidence (PBE) is one of the new terminologies in its incipient stage in the field of nursing. It refers to a clinical investigation that focuses on the clinical expertise or the practice knowledge. This type of research is getting more attention in evidence-based practice and it helps health care professionals to meet the demand for their clients and provide individualized care to them. On the other hand, this type of research also helps to stimulate the enthusiast of nursing research and develop more useful findings to the existing research. PBE is considered as an important part of research in nursing because it has a unique impact on clinical practice and patient care services. The results of practice-established research provide the clinician with a knowledge base. This type of research is a systematic investigation, which means it is a source to the increase in the nursing care that is found to be effective in many years. As I mentioned above, the practice-established research is different from traditional research or formal research, such as molecular research and microbiology researches because these types of research try to find out the result globally. Finally, with regard to the emerging result between the traditional research studies and the practice-based research, what we need to do in the future is focusing on the integration of new knowledge generation with exploring the application of new knowledge. Furthermore, practice-based research is getting more attention in the field of nursing research because it emphasizes the explorer of the clinical knowledge that nurses assume in their practice in daily life. Such as how to establish the nurse-patient relationship, the strategies on health promotion and those way of individualized care to well-being of the patient, etc. And this type of investigation is searching more opportunities to be engaged for the evidence-based practice continents because it will benefit the health care providers and improve the care quality. Nowadays, the research in nursing has been discovering in many aspects knowledge in global or general in the medical field. However, the main point of this type of exploration is to find out what is the best to fit a particular patient and to provide the best care to the patient while maintaining our health profession. It is evidently shown that the physician’s professional placements, many of them no doubts to adapt evidence-based practices and nurse-centered methods in providing paternal care. Both nurses and physicians have shared a common priority where to provide the best care and treatment to the patient. The brand value of practice-based research is to connect the medical field and the health care profession. It is going to increase the awareness and stimulate the growth of nursing research in the future. And this type of research advocated the safe and effective interventions and emphasizing the patient’s well-being and patient care. The care quality can be improved according to the outcomes of the practice-based study. Thus, it leads the practitioner and specialist motivation to work reliance in the research and the study in the future. Govin Kavi

3.3 Bridging the Gap: Translational Research

Translational research refers to the process of applying findings from basic science or laboratory research to studies that can benefit human health. In the context of nursing and healthcare, translational research sits between and connects the worlds of theory and practice by adopting these findings in order to improve patient outcomes. The National Institutes of Health – the largest biomedical research agency in the world – funds and promotes many different types of translational research. These are grouped into different ‘phases’ in order to better explain the different purposes and goals of this kind of research. The most commonly referred to classification is the ‘T’ or ‘Translational’ scheme. However, this isn’t the only type of translational research. Other methods include ‘bench to bedside’ and ‘clinical research’, as well as ‘clinical to community’ and ‘population’ studies. These show the variety of ways in which academic understanding can be applied in order to improve outcomes in nursing practice. Furthermore, identifying a specific focus for evidence-based practice is important if we are going to understand how to promote translational research within the nursing community. Berg and colleagues suggest using research that focuses on the clinical practice and the care of individual patients. This application of internal evidence that is found within organizations, such as quality review and improvement data, can also promote the step-by-step development of translational practices that work for a specific nursing focus in a specific healthcare system. Therefore, by finding and promoting translational practices within nursing, we can allow a higher quality of care and increased patient positivity through these kinds of evidence-based practice.

4. The Role of Nurse Practitioners in Informing Theory and Research

Thus, in a modern and dynamic health system and in an understanding of systematic and critical professional formulation, the current and future roles of nurses and research based on nursing theory are so deeply intertwined that it is difficult to separate in a meaningful way the practical articulation of a nurse’s work and the body of specialized knowledge upon which that practice is based. This interconnectedness is strengthened by actively engaging nurse practitioners, well knowledgeable and highly trained, in the core business of directing, testing, and enlarging the theory that forms the basis for professional nursing.

As those who can best understand the complexity of the lives and experiences of patients, nurse practitioners ideally sit in the best place to ground the intricate and often abstract world of theoretical formulation in the stark and often messy reality of patient care. There is also the added advantage that the extensive time spent in educational preparation and in refining highly developed diagnostic and treatment skills has, over the years, helped forge practice patterns that are recognized by medicine and other healthcare professions. It is at that interface of nursing and other healthcare professional practices, so critical to advancing the autonomy and self-definition of nursing as a distinctive field of inquiry and action, that nurse practitioners can contribute most effectively to not only directing and informing the course of research but in testing and propagating new developments in conceptualization and explanation. This helps to demonstrate why it is increasingly necessary to forge ever-closer ties between nurse practitioners, the delivery of successful new knowledge into practice, and the scholarly leadership necessary to guarantee nursing’s grasp of this vital territory.

In addition to this traditionally well-recognized and important role of nurse practitioners in theory development, nurse practitioners serve as an equally important resource for theory testing and expansion. Since one of the key factors that distinguishes a professional discipline from a skilled occupation is the generation and use of empirical evidence that is systematically created and checked by groups of people with agreed-upon standards of accuracy and quality, a forceful strategy for maintaining and expanding the theory base for nursing is to encourage nurse practitioners to engage in the production and evaluation of that body of knowledge garnered from the clinical setting. This means that nurse practitioners can become critical partners in the research enterprise.

Nurse practitioners play a critical role in informing both nursing theory and nursing research. As the providers of direct patient care across a variety of settings, nurse practitioners are not only well positioned to identify problems and suggest new ideas as they arise in the research literature but also to serve as important conduits for the application of new knowledge. The importance of creating and maintaining innovative and high-quality programs of research and theory development is dependent upon the nursing profession paying attention to what nurse practitioners believe is needed and can be effectively applied in the clinical setting.

4.1 Nurse Practitioners as Clinical Experts

Nurse practitioners (NPs) are registered nurses who have advanced education and clinical training in a healthcare specialty (Columbia University School of Nursing, 2017). There is a lot of information about NPs in theory, but what is the actual role of NPs in informing theory and research? Kerry A. Milner’s article stated that “clinical wisdom as well as knowledge derived from nursing humanities and science are used, but NPs also incorporate knowledge derived from theory and research in other disciplines” (Milner, 2005). In other words, the nature of advanced nursing practice, such as NPs in primary care, requires the use of theories and research, but clinical practice throws many influences on the development of new theoretical constructs and new knowledge (Milner, 2005). The definition of clinical theory first proposed by Shelly and Miller seems perfectly suited to the relationship among theory, practice, and research. Shelly and Miller (2006) said that “theory guides the research process, the findings, and the application to practice” (p. 16). That is to say, theory is the collection of information in a specific field that may consist of many well-confirmed hypotheses (Shelly & Miller, 2006). Similarly, in our normal clinical practice, we also apply the existing clinical theories. When businesses apply economic principles, they tell us why and how consumers make the decisions they do.

4.2 Nurse Practitioners as Educators and Mentors

Mentorship skills are of particular importance for nurse practitioners because the role of the nurse mentor is increasingly being recognized as critical to the success of new nurses transitioning into the healthcare environment. However, in order to continue to inspire and maintain success, nurse mentors must continue to engage in and develop their scholarly activities by conducting research and translating theory into practical mentorship skills. Mentorship skills may be enhanced through training programs that focus on the scholarship of teaching and encourage engagement in self-reflective practice. Such activities are encouraged by the recent trend to bring new knowledge into the educational field through empirically based inquiry as well as theoretical knowledge development in the nurse education community.

Education for nurse practitioners in teaching roles generally focuses on how to teach and mentor adult learners, curriculum development and evaluation, and other skills necessary for academic success. However, specific training on how to translate education and mentorship skills and theoretical knowledge into practice or scholarly activities is generally lacking. On the other hand, mentorship skills are often developed through both experiential learning and deliberate training experiences, such as participating in a structured mentorship program. Such programs lead to the development of skill sets necessary for effective mentorship, including how to provide emotional support, implement evidence-based teaching and learning practices, and engage in ethical practice.

Nurse practitioners not only provide direct patient care, but they also act as educators and mentors for other nurses and healthcare providers. Nurse educators work in academic settings where they teach and mentor nursing students. They also engage in their own scholarship, such as conducting research or translating evidence into practice. On the other hand, nurse mentors primarily work in clinical settings where they provide guidance and support to new nurses who are transitioning into their professional roles. This guidance is especially important because the new nurses may be transitioning into new clinical areas of practice as well.

4.3 Nurse Practitioners as Researchers

As part of the continual evolution of what is known as “theory” in our profession, nurse researchers are constantly refining and expanding our understanding of not only the science of nursing, which is in a fairly constant state of change, but also the art of nursing practice. It is the translation of the knowledge created through nurse research that is the critical element in establishing nursing’s unique, complex, and essential contribution to health care. The “translation” of knowledge can occur in many ways, but the most important form, in terms of creating a substantive knowledge base for the discipline, is that form which establishes a direct and symbiotic relationship between practice and theory. This process, often referred to as “applied” research, “action” research or “participatory” research, is the form of research that is most likely to lead to development of true practice-theory linkages and ultimately to the evolution of a “praxis” – the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, in embodied form. Applying those “translation” knowledge, nurse practitioners could make contribution in either a scientifically way or in the day-to-day routine nursing practice. A research carried out in 2005 with a nurse practitioner sample in Maine, US, indicated that “92 percent of responding nurse practitioners reported that they had participated in practice research, including collecting data for research studies, participating in industry-operated clinical trials, and conducting their own studies”. This figure clearly demonstrated that nurse practitioners have sufficient capability and clinical knowledge to take part in various kinds of research activities and such participation is no longer an unfamiliar area. However, it is argued by some medical professions that nurse practitioners may not maintain an impartial status when they are carry out research which may involve them and affect their own nursing area. Two points are worth to discuss here. First of all, when a nurse practitioner participates in research which may directly involve his or her practice, the objectiveness about the research topic might be on stake. Second, if positive findings are generated through the research conducted by the nurse practitioner, there might be fewer people hold a positive attitude towards this kind of research that nurse practitioners were involved. Especially certain firmly evidence is needed to prove that the research was conducted in a genuine status but not a superficial work. However, how we define impartial? Impartiality could be “both in fact and in appearance” and nurse practitioner has a professional responsibility to avoid a conflict of interest inherent in a research study. Such conflict exists, for example, when a subordinate is asked to do nursing research by employers. But actually, according to the new Nursing Council guideline, there is already a requirement that a nurse practitioner should ensure the independence of his or her professional judgement when they are conducting research whether it is clinical-employed or self-financed. So the argument presented previously does not hold if a nurse practitioner follows this guideline because true professional research should be able to be carried on in a free status.