A Review of Nursing Research: Case Study of a Thai University

Abstract

Reviews of nursing research contribute to identifying the research direction of the institution and benefiting the development of knowledge in caring for people and the advancement of the nursing profession. This article aimed to review nursing research according to research vision, research design, nursing roles, and nursing fields, as well as the outcomes, at the Faculty of Nursing, Thammasat University, Thailand. The keyword search included four visionary research domains: palliative care, geriatric care, family health and health promotion, and education and innovation. Research studies were conducted by graduate-level students, faculty members, and researchers within the faculty during the period of 2005 to 2022. The data retrieval process involved accessing electronic records through the Nursing Faculty's research unit's computers, supplemented by searches for author names with publications in databases such as PubMed Central (PMC), Science Direct, Springer Link, Wiley Online Library, Mosby's Nursing Consult, and Thai Journal Online through the one-search feature in Google Scholar within the Scopus database. The search results yielded a total of 354 research studies, categorized according to the faculty's research vision, as follows: family health and health promotion (72%), education and innovation (15%), geriatric care (9%), and palliative care (4%). When classified by research design, it was found that quasiexperimental research constituted the majority (50.8%), followed by descriptive correlational research (30.0%), research implementation (7.3%), mixed-methods research (5.4%), qualitative research (5.1%), and randomized controlled trials (1.4%). When considering nursing roles, the most prevalent were health promotion and prevention (44.4%), followed by care provision (32.8%), integrative role (18.6%), rehabilitation (2.8%), and therapeutic role (1.4%). By nursing fields, the predominant focus was on adult nursing (35%), followed by psychiatric and mental health nursing (27%), community health nursing, education, and innovation (19%), maternal and child nursing (7%), pediatric and adolescent nursing (7%), and geriatric nursing (5%), respectively. Upon evaluating the outcomes, it was noted that the research articles were published in the Scopus database journals at a rate of 29.38%, and were cited within international journals in the Scopus database at a rate of 15.82%. The findings of this research review serve as a guide for aligning nursing research development with the research vision and achieving positive outcomes.