"Voice of the profession:" Nurse editors as leaders

Nurse editors lead the nursing profession by shaping the literature on which practice is based. This qualitative descriptive study was designed to explore nurse editors’ perceptions of the most important aspects of their role and its best and worst qualities. An email survey was returned by 88 editors of 90 journals. Responses to 3 open-ended questions were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The most commonly cited important aspects of the editor role were to maintain scientific and editorial quality and provide vision and direction. The most commonly noted benefits were helping nurses become authors and influencing nursing knowledge and practice. The worst aspects were constant demands on their time and the scarcity of good writing. These nurse editors’ goals of moving the profession forward through mentoring are congruent with contemporary theories of leadership. Employer support for both editors and writers would enhance the production of published evidence and reduce the burdens on editors.