The Publication Culture of Nursing Science in Finland: analysis of Research Articles Published in the Journal of Nursing Science from 1989 to 2008

• Main Authors: Jarmo Saarti, Katri Vehvilainen-Julkunen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Professor Despina Sapountzi-Krepia 2012-01-01
• Series: International Journal of Caring Sciences
• Subjects: content analysis; Finland; nursing science; methodology; publications; research
• Online Access: http://internationaljournalofcaringsciences.org/docs/5.Publication%20Culture.pdf

Purpose: Nursing science has developed rapidly as an academic discipline and also as a scientific institutioninternationally in the past thirty years. Publishing policies in different disciplines can be used in analyzing theirdevelopment and scientific culture. The purpose of this paper is to describe publication profile of Finnish nursingresearch and the contents and methods used.Methods: The data consisted of 433 articles published in Journal of Nursing Science (in Finnish Hoitotiede) duringyears 1989-2008. The journal is the first national scientific journal founded for nurse researchers in 1989. The datawere analyzed using content analysis.Results: The publishing has developed from single author papers to group work. A total of 24 % of the papers weresingle authored. Most of the papers were published in research groups within the discipline (94 %). Only 24 papersincluded collaboration with other disciplines such as medicine, statistics and education. Half of the papers concentratedon nursing practice and rest mainly on methodological issues or education. Only a few papers focused on healthpromotion, leadership issues or health policy. The nature of the research studies was descriptive, focus more onqualitative studies and a few intervention studies were published. Data were mostly collected by surveys or interviewsand physiological methods were nearly non-existent.Conclusions: The focus in Finnish studies has been on patients but on minor scale. The future challenge is to produceknowledge thru research programmes to have impact on clinical practice and health policy. Further studies are neededin evaluation of the state of nursing research in Finland and the contents as well as outcomes of the field.