The purposes of study was: 1. To identify the direction and scope of research activities in Korean Nursing. 2. To discuss the unique problems present in Korea that warrant nursing research. 3. To delineate the factors that facilitate and/or hinder nursing research in Korea. This study was conducted at six colleges of nursing in Korea. The schools which were selected had doctoral programs at the time, the data were collected in 1990. Four of the schools were located in the metropolitan area of the capital city, Seoul, and two were in two other cities similar in size. The total population of the study was 283 nurses. The instrument for the research was the English version of Research Profile Questionnaire which was translated into Korean by the researchers and was validated in its translation by two professors. A pretest procedure was done before the data collection process. Of the population of 283, 210 subjects received the questionnaire and 150 subjects responded(71.4%). Excluding incomplete questionnaires, 141 questionnaires were utilized for data analysis. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Responses to open-ended questions were content analyzed for themes and categories. Results of the study were as follows : Respondents currently , involved in nursing research numbered 108(76.6%), but 33(23.4%) did not have any research experience. The inexperienced respondenLs tended to be younger than the experienced subjects and most( 60.6%) were employed in hospitals, while 82.4 percent of the experienced nurses were employed in nursing schools. Among the respondents with research experience, 68.5 percent were involved in one to three projects and 31.5 percent were engaged in four or more projects. The experienced nurses indicated that nursing research in Korea is active. On the other hand, the responses of the inexperienced were that nursing research is not active. The most frequently selected research subjects were patients(76.9%, 83 respondents) followed by nurses, healthy persons and nursing students. The relatively high percentage of healthy persons as study subjects, could be explained as a concern of nurses for healthy persons as well as for ill patients. The aforememioned literature review showed a dramatic change in the kinds of study subjects; approximately 33 percent were patients but 25 percent were healthy subjects of various ages. The hospital was the prevailing research setting(67.6%) but at the same time various community settings were used. This is a changing phenomena in nursing research of Korea. Current research designed to build on previous studies amounted to 75 percent; about 39.8 percem were theory and hypothesis generated. Over 65 recommended additional research focusing on hypothesis-testing 0:' theory building. The previously quoted literature review found that only 4.0 percent of the study quescions were developed from a theoretical framework. The most frequently listed current major focus of nursmg research was stress and adaptation. Patients with cancer, pain, social support and care of the elderly were the next most frequently reported. These concerns may reflect problems associated with a technological and industrializing societyl. The most frequently identified problem was lack of clinical research. The need for replication research and research that contributes to the accumulation of nursing knowledge were found to be rare in Korean research. A need for theory testing and theory construction research was also identified. Although advanced statistical methods were often utilized in nursing research, the results were frequently considered by the interviewers not to be applicable in practice, and readers had difficulty in comprehending the findings. Even though the number of clinical nurses involved in research is increasing, it is still considered inadequate.
Among 108 respondents, 83(76.9%) gave lack of time as a barrier to conducting nursing research. Over fifty percent of the respondants reportad lack of funding or, personally, low confidence in research skll s barriers. The respondents olfered 183 suggestions for future emphasis in nursing research. Among the 51 areas of emphasis, clinical research received the highest number and nursing intarvention was next. The findings suggested that nursing ressarch should be based on theory, be related t0 practice and relevant to the situation of a unique Korean culture.
|