Health care implications and space allocation of research published in nursing journals

Publishing research in professional peer-reviewed journals remains one of the most valuable ways to disseminate research. Purpose To examine how research is disseminated through nursing journals and to examine characteristics of published research. Design A cross-sectional descriptive survey was conducted with manuscripts from 78 nursing journals that publish research. Method The final issue for 1999 was examined. Pairs of independent raters content-analyzed all research manuscripts. Discussion Research studies comprised 241 (42.9%) of the manuscripts and 51.4% of the journal space. Many empirical studies omitted validity and reliability. Few manuscripts reported the date for completion of data collection, and fewer than one third contained the length of time from acceptance to publication. Conclusions Enhanced instrumentation reporting, shorter time from data collection to publication, and an increase in journal space devoted to research might enable nurses to make more cutting-edge clinical decisions.