SRAN 1

January 19, 2007

At a consensus conference in Berne, 100 representatives from hospitals, universities of applied sciences, universities and patient organisations will decide on the national research priorities for nursing care in Switzerland.
The event is of great importance for nursing care in Switzerland. The worldwide trend towards the academicisation of nursing care has also led to changes in Switzerland. Nursing was established as a university discipline at the University of Basel and at various universities of applied sciences, and the number of nursing research projects has risen sharply in recent years.

In Switzerland, research activities in nursing have hardly been coordinated to date. As a result, resources are used with little focus and researchers often operate individually, usually with small data sets. The significance of the results is thus limited and the potential of nursing research to improve health care can be underused. For these reasons, the Swiss Association for Nursing Science (VfP), with the financial support of F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, Basel, launched the Swiss Research Agenda For Nursing (SRAN) project in October 2005.
Today, the Swiss Research Agenda For Nursing, which was able to define research priorities by means of an extensive literature search, various expert surveys and a national consultation process, was discussed at the consensus conference and initial ideas for an action plan were formulated.
The research priorities were divided into seven main areas. Within these areas, thematic priorities were identified and concrete measures described. The conference participants agreed with the nursing scientists that the subject of nursing research is primarily of a clinical nature and must benefit patients. The spectrum of nursing science is broad and ranges from health promotion for healthy people to palliative care at the end of life. Nursing intervention research should help to ensure that measures and programmes are implemented that are clearly defined and whose effectiveness has been proven.
The first phase of the creation of a research agenda for nursing care in Switzerland has now been completed and the participants have started to think about an action plan to advance the implementation of the agenda. A successful conclusion of an important work and the encouraging start into the next phase is done. Nursing care needs care research that allows evidence-based care for patients.