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How to Become a Research Nurse

4 min read • April, 28 2023

Are you looking for a new challenge in your nursing career? Whether you're just starting out or you're an experienced nurse, there are many nursing career paths from which to choose. Neonatal or dialysis nursing, for example, let you expand your knowledge within a specific discipline. Clinical research nursing, on the other hand, offers the opportunity to help conduct clinical trials for developing and testing new treatments, medications, and procedures.

Becoming a nurse researcher can be incredibly satisfying if you want to enhance your medical knowledge, expand therapeutic options for patients, and enjoy face-to-face care.

What Does a Research Nurse Do?

Clinical research nurses are on the front lines of medical innovation, helping research teams test the latest treatments and procedures. The role of a research nurse may vary daily depending on specific studies or trials in which you're participating. You can generally expect a mix of patient care, academic reporting, and record maintenance.

Some studies call for higher levels of patient interaction. You may interview patients before a new procedure or monitor, record, and report their progress after they've received an experimental treatment. Research nurses must often supervise patients to ensure they follow the study protocols correctly.

Besides patient interactions, a clinical research nurse may be responsible for writing reports or study results, submitting and publishing studies in medical journals, or presenting research findings at a medical conference.

What Studies Do Clinical Research Nurses Participate In?

Medical research is either quantitative or qualitative. As a clinical research nurse, you may participate in both. Quantitative studies focus on results that can be empirically measured, such as statistics. Qualitative studies, like case studies, are more holistic and help you better understand a question or issue from all angles.

Most clinical research is quantitative. For instance, a quantitative study of a new surgical procedure might measure how many days it takes a patient to recover compared to the previous method. Qualitative research, on the other hand, might focus on better understanding how cultural norms in a particular population affect their decision to get vaccines.

What Experience and Education Are Required?

The role of a research nurse isn't an entry-level position and typically requires extensive studies, which may include job-specific courses and additional nursing certifications. Due to the time involved in becoming a nurse researcher, you usually won't find many nursing professionals in this role early on in their careers. If you're interested in pursuing a position as a clinical nurse researcher, it's wise to start planning in advance.

Besides your licensure as a registered nurse (RN), you may want an advanced nursing degree such as a Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) or Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP). Not every research nursing job will require an advanced degree. However, some employers prefer them, so having one can make it easier to get work.

Advanced degrees typically require a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) as a prerequisite. If you plan to get one, you'll need to take a longer path to get an RN degree or go back to school for your BSN before pursuing the necessary degrees for clinical research nursing. Some programs offer an accelerated program that combines BSN and MSN degrees.

Depending on your position or employer, you may also need specialized training in clinical research methodology and a certification from the Association of Clinical Research Professionals . To obtain a certificate, you must demonstrate as many as 3,000 hours (the equivalent of eighteen months of full-time work) of relevant work in human subject research within the last ten years. If you meet that requirement, you'll also need to take an exam before receiving your clinical research nurse certification.

How Long Does It Take to Become a Nurse Researcher?

Becoming a clinical research nurse can take ten years or more, depending on how much education and work experience you decide to pursue before applying for your first research position. If you intend to maximize your education and subsequent hiring possibilities, this comprehensive timeline outlines the steps you might consider:

• Years 1–4: Obtain a BSN degree, typically issued as a standard four-year degree.
• Year 4: Get licensed by taking the NCLEX-RN exam for registered nurses.
• (Optional) Years 5–7: Obtain an MSN degree. This program typically takes up to three years to complete.
• (Optional) Years 5–9: Obtain a Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing (Ph.D.) degree, which can take three to five years to complete.
• 2+ years of work experience: Whether you go directly from your BSN to your MSN or work in the field before pursuing an advanced degree, you'll likely need to spend time working as a nurse before you can apply for a clinical research position. If seeking certification, you'll also need relevant work hours in human subject research, which can take several years to accrue.

Clinical Research Nurse Salary and Career Prospects

The demand and salary for clinical research nurses are strong. Nurses, in general, are in high demand, and an increasingly technological health care industry always needs nurses to develop new treatments and procedures. The salary for a clinical research nurse is higher than the average for RNs, and these specialists make around $90–100,000 per year on average.

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Research Nurse

What is a Research Nurse?

Research nurses conduct scientific research into various aspects of health, including illnesses, treatment plans, pharmaceuticals and healthcare methods, with the ultimate goals of improving healthcare services and patient outcomes. Also known as nurse researchers, research nurses design and implement scientific studies, analyze data and report their findings to other nurses, doctors and medical researchers. A career path that requires an advanced degree and additional training in research methodology and tools, research nurses play a critical role in developing new, potentially life-saving medical treatments and practices.

How to Become a Research Nurse

A highly specialized career path, becoming a nurse researcher requires an advanced degree and training in informatics and research methodology and tools. Often, research nurses enter the field as research assistants or clinical research coordinators. The first step for these individuals, or for any aspiring advanced practice nurse, is to earn a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree from an accredited nursing school and pass the NCLEX-RN exam. Once a nurse has completed their degree and attained an RN license , the next step in becoming a research nurse is to complete a Master's of Science in Nursing (MSN) program focusing on research and writing. MSN-level courses best prepare nurses for a career in research, and usually include coursework in statistics, research for evidence-based practice, design and coordination of clinical trials, and advanced research methodology.

A typical job posting for a research nurse position would likely include the following qualifications, among others specific to the type of employer and location:

• MSN degree and valid RN license
• Experience conducting clinical research, including enrolling patients in research studies, implementing research protocol and presenting findings
• Excellent attention to detail required in collecting and analyzing data
• Strong written and verbal communication skills for interacting with patients and reporting research findings
• Experience in grant writing a plus

What Are the Schooling Requirements for Research Nurses?

The majority of nurse researchers have an advanced nursing degree, usually an MSN and occasionally a Ph.D. in Nursing . In addition to earning an RN license, research nurses need to obtain specialized training in informatics, data collection, scientific research and research equipment as well as experience writing grant proposals, research reports and scholarly articles. Earning a PhD is optional for most positions as a research nurse, but might be required to conduct certain types of research.

Are Any Certifications or Credentials Needed?

Aside from a higher nursing degree, such as an MSN or Ph.D. in Nursing, and an active RN license, additional certifications are often not required for work as a research nurse. However, some nurse researcher positions prefer candidates who have earned the Certified Clinical Research Professional (CCRP) certification offered by the Society for Clinical Research Associates . In order to be eligible for this certification, candidates must have a minimum of two years' experience working in clinical research. The Association of Clinical Research Professionals also offers several certifications in clinical research, including the Clinical Research Associate Certification, the Clinical Research Coordinator Certification, and the Association of Clinical Research Professionals – Certified Professional Credential. These certifications have varying eligibility requirements but generally include a number of hours of professional experience in clinical research and an active RN license. Here’s a breakdown of the various certifications you can get as a research nurse:

What Does a Research Nurse Do?

A research nurse studies various aspects of the healthcare industry with the ultimate goal of improving patient outcomes. Nurse researchers have specialized knowledge of informatics, scientific research, and data collection and analysis, in addition to their standard nursing training and RN license. Nurse researchers often design their own studies, secure funding, implement their research, and collect and analyze their findings. They may also assist in the recruitment of study participants and provide direct patient care for participants while conducting their research. Once a research project has been completed, nurse researchers report their findings to other nurses, doctors, and medical researchers through written articles, research reports, and/or industry speaking opportunities.

Where Do Research Nurses Work?

Nurse researchers work in a variety of settings, including:

• Medical research organizations
• Research laboratories
• Universities
• Pharmaceutical companies

What Are the Roles and Duties of a Research Nurse?

• Design and implement research studies
• Observe patient care of treatment or procedures, and collect and analyze data, including managing databases
• Report findings of their research, which may include presenting findings at industry conferences, meetings, or other speaking engagements
• Write grant applications to secure funding for studies
• Publish articles and research reports in nursing or medical professional journals or other publications
• Assist in the recruitment of participants for studies and provide direct patient care for participants

Research Nurse Salary & Employment

The Society of Clinical Research Associates reported a median salary for research nurses of $72,009 in their SoCRA 2015 Salary Survey , one of the highest-paying nursing specializations in the field. Salary levels for nurse researchers can vary based on the type of employer, geographic location and the nurse's education and experience level. Healthcare research is a growing field, so the career outlook is bright for RNs interested in pursuing an advanced degree and a career in research. Here’s a full range of salaries you can expect as a research nurse, according to ZipRecruiter.

Helpful Organizations, Societies, and Agencies

• National Institute of Nursing Research
• Council for the Advancement of Nursing Science
• International Association of Clinical Research Nurses
• Nurse Researcher Magazine

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Nurse Researcher Career Overview

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Job outlook, average earning potential, what does a nurse researcher do.

Nurse researcher jobs involve designing and carrying out research studies, either through new data that they create or from existing research. The following is a list of nurse researcher responsibilities:

Primary Responsibilities

• Designing nursing research studies
• Carrying out research
• Documenting that their research protects any human or animal subjects involved
• Publishing findings in peer-reviewed journals or books
• Presenting at conferences
• Keeping up with professional literature

Career Traits

• Strengths in analysis, observation, and written communication
• Ethical in publishing studies and the treatment of human or animal subjects

Credit: JGI/Tom Grill / Getty Images

Where Do Nurse Researchers Work?

Nurse researchers work in academic medical centers, government agencies, and other healthcare providers.

Academic Medical Centers

Nurse researchers in academic medical centers conduct research, publish results, and teach undergraduate or graduate students.

Government Agencies

In government agencies, these professionals perform research, share findings, and publish results internally or externally.

Nurse researchers working in publishing select articles for publication, review methodology and validity, and edit articles in collaboration with authors.

Why Should I Become a Nurse Researcher?

Research nurse jobs add to professional knowledge and help nurses to do their jobs with evidence-based research, improving healthcare outcomes. Nursing research doesn’t include the same physical demands as clinical nursing and offers more predictable schedules. However, nurse research jobs typically do not pay as much as clinical nursing roles.

Advantages To Becoming a Nurse Researcher

Disadvantages to becoming a nurse researcher, how to become a nurse researcher.

Becoming a nurse researcher requires developing skills in research methodology, informatics, statistics, and nursing itself.

Graduate with a bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) or an associate degree in nursing (ADN).

Pass the nclex-rn exam to receive registered nurse (rn) licensure., begin research., apply to an accredited msn, doctor of nursing practice (dnp), or doctor of philosophy in nursing (ph.d.) program., earn an msn, dnp, or ph.d., apply for certification., how much do nurse researchers make.

The annual median research nurse salary is $81,500 . Generally, nurse researchers with doctoral degrees earn more than those with master’s-level education. Some research nurse professionals in academia qualify for tenure. In general, clinical research associates earn a median salary of $66,930 , while certified clinical research professionals earn an average salary of $72,430 . However, because of the RN credential, nurse researchers with these certifications generally earn above the average or median for those positions.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take to become a nurse researcher.

Nurse researcher careers require a significant time investment. It takes at least six years of education to earn an MSN and seven years for a doctorate. In addition, most MSN and doctoral programs require at least two years of experience as an RN.

Why is nursing research important?

Nursing research finds the most effective approaches to nursing and improves the outcomes for nurses, patients, and healthcare organizations. It builds the body of knowledge for nurse education.

What are some examples of responsibilities nurse researchers may have?

Professional responsibilities include protecting human or animal subjects in their research, designing studies that produce valid results, accurately reporting results, and sharing findings through publishing.

What opportunities for advancement are available to nurse researchers?

Research nurse jobs offer opportunities for advancement in the academic or research field, such as becoming primary investigator on studies of increasing scope and importance, advancement in administration, or receiving tenure as a professor or college instructor.

Resources for Nurse Researchers

International association of clinical research nurses, national institute of nursing research, the association of clinical research professionals, society of clinical research associates, related pages.

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Reviewed by:

Nicole Galan is a registered nurse who earned a master’s degree in nursing education from Capella University and currently works as a full-time freelance writer. Throughout her nursing career, Galan worked in a general medical/surgical care unit and then in infertility care. She has also worked for over 13 years as a freelance writer specializing in consumer health sites and educational materials for nursing students.

Galan is a paid member of our Healthcare Review Partner Network. Learn more about our review partners .

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Clinical Research Nursing

Clinical Research Nursing Landmark Documents

Domain of Practice   |  Model of Care

Background and Overview

In January 2007, Clinical Center Nursing at the National Institutes of Health launched a four-year strategic plan to lead an international effort to define the specialty practice of clinical research nursing. The goal was to take this definition to the level of detail and consensus required to create a certification process for nurses practicing in clinical research. This initiative is called Clinical Research Nursing 2010 , or CRN 2010 .

Clinical research nursing is nursing practice with a specialty focus on the care of research patients. In addition to providing and coordinating clinical care, clinical research nurses have a central role in assuring patient safety, ongoing maintenance of informed consent, integrity of protocol implementation, accuracy of data collection, data recording and follow up. Care received by research patients is driven by study requirements and the collection of research data as well as clinical indications. Study procedures may include administration of investigational drugs, performance of an experimental or investigational surgical or radiological procedure, detailed clinical assessment or phenotyping to characterize the natural history and etiology of a disease, or delivery of a psychosocial intervention. Additional nursing care may be necessitated by the response of the participant to the study intervention.

The scope of CRN 2010 included two the main roles assumed by nurses practicing in clinical research settings.

• Clinical research nurses are clinical staff nurses with a central focus on care of research patients. They support study implementation within the context of the care delivery setting and are primarily located in dedicated clinical research settings, such as the NIH Clinical Center and clinical research units located in academic medical centers across the country. These clinical nurses are part of the permanent infrastructure of the research unit and are available to any investigator accessing the facility.
• Research nurse coordinators are primarily responsible for study coordination and data management, with a central focus on managing subject recruitment and enrollment, consistency of study implementation, data management and integrity, and compliance with regulatory requirements and reporting. Research nurse coordinators are often hired by and report to a principal investigator for support of a specific study or group of studies. They may rely on clinical staff to deliver “hands on” care including administration of investigational drugs or interventions.

Developing tools to support the specialty practice of clinical research nursing included two parallel efforts:

• A careful and thorough documentation and clarification of the practice of clinical research nursing here at the Clinical Center, and
• The formal development and consensus around steps leading to possible national certification.

Both efforts used a team structure that included all leadership members of the Nursing Department Leadership as well as nursing Shared Governance chairs and co-chairs. Examination of the Clinical Center practice of clinical research nursing began with a clarification of our model of nursing care delivery, roles across the department and several key processes of clinical care such as research patient education and clinical documentation. Development of a specialty identity, which can lead to certification, began with a clarification of the domain of practice. This is similar to the steps taken by various specialty groups ranging from oncology nursing to informatics nursing. The CRN domain includes 5 dimensions and about 50 individual activities which make up the full range of practice of both clinical nurses providing research-based patient care and study coordinators managing studies.

This domain description was validated in 2008 with the assistance of a consensus panel representing Clinical Center and Institute nurses as well as nurses in clinical research from across the country.

In 2016, the American Nurses Association recognized Clinical Research Nursing as a specialty practice and published the Clinical Research Nursing: Scope and Standards of Practice.

Clinical Research Nursing Documents

Domain of Practice

Model of Care

How to Become a Research Nurse

Research Nurse Overview

• What You Will Do: You will work as a part of a team involved in clinical research studies evaluating patient care practices.
• Where Will You Work: Research nurses may work in a variety of settings, such as hospital/medical centers, universities, pharmaceutical companies, research organizations and government agencies.
• Employment Projections: Nursing is expected to be the fastest-growing professions, with growth projected at 16% – 26%; similarly, the employment outlook for research nurses is excellent, with a projected growth rate of 19% by 2022.
• How Much Will I Earn: The median annual salary for research nurses ranges from $74,177 to $91,107, with an average annual salary of $82,708.
• Requirements to Become One: Become a Registered Nurse (RN) by completing an accredited nursing program earning a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN),  then passing the NCLEX-RN examination to obtain licensure.

Online Nursing Programs That Might Interest You

Learn about start dates, transferring credits, availability of financial aid, and more by contacting the universities below.

Steps to Become a Research Nurse

• Earn Your RN: You must earn an RN degree from an accredited nursing program, earning Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN). The BSN is the base level education for research nursing. Nurses with an Associate’s Degree in Nursing would need to bridge into an RN to BSN program .
• Pass the NCLEX-RN Exam: All RNs must pass the NCLEX-RN exam to obtain licensure to practice nursing.
• Gain Clinical Experience as a Professional Registered Nurse: It is important to gain clinical experience as a professional nurse, in preparation for moving into a specialty role. In addition, seek opportunities to participate in research-related activities, such as Quality Assurance or Infection Control.
• Seek Employment as a Research Nurse: You must have a minimum of 3000 – 6000 hours experience in clinical research nursing to be eligible for certification.
• Obtain Certification as a Research Nurse: Obtain this certification from the Association for Clinical Research Professionals.

What is a Research Nurse?

Research Nurses are involved in conducting healthcare related scientific research with the goals of improving patient care services and patient outcomes. Research nurses have knowledge of informatics, research design, and data collection and analysis. Research nurses may participate in research design within a research team, or for their own studies, as well as securing funding, recruiting participants and providing direct care for participants. When a research project has been completed, research nurses report findings to nurses and other healthcare professionals through written research reports or articles, or in speaking opportunities such as conferences or workshops. Specific roles and duties include;

• Design and implementation of research studies
• Observing patient care related to treatment or procedures,
• Collecting and analyzing data, including managing databases
• Reporting findings of research, presenting findings at industry conferences, meetings and other speaking engagements
• Writing grant applications to secure funding for studies
• Writing articles and research reports in nursing or medical professional journals or other publications
• Assisting in the recruitment of participants for studies and
• Providing direct patient care for participants

How Do I Become a Research Nurse?

The first step toward becoming an infection control nurse is to become a Registered Nurse, earning a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree (BSN) from an accredited nursing program. After graduation, you must obtain RN licensure by taking the NCLEX-RN examination in your state. Once you have achieved licensure, you will need to gain clinical experience as an RN. Following gaining this experience, then seek employment in a research nursing role, in order to progress toward certification.

The Association of Clinical Research Professionals offers two certifications for research nurses; Certified Clinical Research Associate (CCRA) or Certified Clinical Research Coordinator CCRC).

Eligibility requirements for CCRA are:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing (or higher)
• Verify adherence to the clinical protocol, appropriate clinical practices and regulatory requirements related to the protection and ethical treatment of human subjects.
• Ensure identification and reporting of safety issues.
• Perform monitoring activities per the monitoring plan.
• Review accuracy and completeness of research site records.
• Ensure accountability of Investigational Product and related supplies.
• Ensure complete reporting and correct documentation of monitoring activities.
• Conduct routine monitoring visits independently from the investigative study staff.
• Ensure the research site staff is identifying issues and implementing corrective and preventive actions to ensure inspection readiness.

Eligibility requirements for CCRC are:

• Report and document safety issues.
• Participate in the preparation or review of documents exchanged with the Institutional Review Board (IRB).
• Participate in protocol review or planning of study procedures.
• Participate in conduction subject visits.
• Collect accurate, verifiable data, source documents, and essential documents.
• Prepare for and participate in audits and/or regulatory inspections.
• Participate in the informed consent process.

Certification is valid for 2 years, after which it must be renewed by participating in continuing education/involvement activities, reporting 24 contact hours every 2 years, or successful completion of the current certification exam.

Where Do Research Nurses Typically Work?

Research nurses work within a variety of health care settings, including;

• Hospital/medical centers
• Universities
• Healthcare research organizations
• Pharmaceutical corporations
• Government agencies
• Research laboratories

How Much Do Research Nurses Earn?

Nursing, in general, is identified as one of the fastest growing professions in the US in terms of salary, with a projected growth of 16% – 26%, much higher than the national average. Specialty certification can increase earnings significantly. The median annual salary for research nurses ranges from $74,177 to $91,107, with an average annual salary of $82,708. This is dependent on the specific job and employer, and the geographical area. Salaries are generally higher in urban areas, however, the cost of living is typically higher, as well. In addition, research nurse with a Master’s degree (MSN) or higher, tend to earn higher salaries. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the top five states for general nursing salaries are (range $96,470 – $102,700);

• Massachusetts

Research Nurse Programs

At the undergraduate level, specialty-related education consists of continuing education activities, such as conferences or online CEU providers. For example, the Association of Clinical Research Professionals offers basic level education, and resources needed for maintaining certification. Examples of related topics include:

• Introduction to Clinical Trials
• Introduction to Good Clinical Practice
• Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC)
• CDISC standards related to collection and submission of data
• Implementing a Patient-centered Informed Consent Process
• Best Practices for Clinical Trial Inspections
• Ethics and Human Subject Protection
• Understanding Clinical Trial Protocols
• Managing Clinical Trials in an Electronic Environment

At the graduate level, research nurses have at least a Master’s Degree in Nursing (MSN) , or may progress to a PhD or Doctor of Nursing Practice Degree . An MSN curriculum will include courses related to reviewing and conducting research in conjunction within the specialty area. A more specific focus on research will be found in terminal degree (PhD or DNP) programs. Examples of graduate programs include;

• Duke University, Durham, NC; MSN, PhD and DNP programs. PhD program focus on interdisciplinary research. https://nursing.duke.edu/
• Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA; MSN in Clinical Research, Online Program – https://nursing.duke.edu/
• University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL; Master of Research administration, Online Program – https://www.ucf.edu/online/
• Ohio State University College of Nursing, Columbus, OH; Master of Applied Clinical and Preclinical Research, Online Program  – https://nursing.osu.edu/
• University of Cincinnati College of Nursing, Cincinnati, OH; PhD in Nursing Research – https://nursing.uc.edu/

Related Careers: Nursing Informatics

What is a Typical Research Nurse Curriculum?

Topics addressed in Research Nurse curricula include:

• Research Methods and Biostatistics
• Evaluation and Translation of Health Research
• Foundations of Good Clinical Practice in Clinical Research
• Concepts of Clinical Research Management
• Human Subjects Research in Biomedical Sciences
• Management of Clinical and Preclinical Studies
• Data Analysis and Interpretation
• Descriptive and Inferential Statistics
• Responsible Conduct of Research
• Ethics and Research Integrity
• Research Design and Methods

The Role of the Research Nurse in the Healthcare Provider Shortage

The Bureau of Labor Statistics cites that employment for nurses will increase at a rate of 16% – %20 by 2024. There is a national shortage of nurses in general related to the Baby Boomer population entering retirement, and the increased health needs of the growing aging population. It is projected that the South and West will be hardest hit by the nursing shortage. The 12 states expected to have the most acute shortages are: Florida , Georgia , Texas , Virginia , Alaska , Arizona , California , Hawaii , Idaho , Montana , Nevada and New Mexico .

Research nurses will be in continued demand, as their knowledge and expert skills are needed in the growing field of healthcare research. Research nurses will be pursued by pharmaceutical companies, research laboratories, universities, private companies, independent research organizations, and hospitals/medical centers.

Research Nurse Resources

• The Association of Clinical Research Professionals – https://acrpnet.org/
• National Institute of Nursing Research –   https://www.ninr.nih.gov/
• Council for the Advancement of Nursing Science – http://www.nursingscience.org/home
•  International Association of Clinical Research Nurses – https://iacrn.org/
• Nurse Researcher – https://rcni.com/nurse-researcher

References  

• Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium – https://www.cdisc.org/
• EveryNurse – https://everynurse.org/
• Payscale.com – https://www.registerednursing.org/
• Salary.com – https://www1.salary.com
• Study.com – https://study.com/
• US Department of Labor; Bureau of Labor Statistics – https://www.bls.gov/

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Karen is a Registered Nurse, graduating with a BSN in nursing in 1972 from North Park College in Chicago, Illinois. Her graduate degree was earned at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, in 1985. While her major clinical area specialty has been maternal/infant, pediatrics nursing, and women’s health, she has also worked in med-surg and adult ICU environments. She have 22 years’ experience in a faculty role, the past 7 years in an online venue.

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Career Advice > Transition Out of Nursing > Non Traditional Nursing Roles > How to Become a Research Nurse

How to Become a Research Nurse

Search resource center.

Do you enjoy combing through data for insights? Are you curious about how evidence-based practices are developed? You might make a great nurse researcher. These specialists work behind the scenes of patient care to improve outcomes and develop new standards. If you’re interested in a non-bedside nursing position, you might be curious to learn how to become a research nurse.

If you’ve ever wondered how vaccines are developed or how nursing practice theories are tested, it’s partly due to the work of research nurses. This is the importance of nursing research — developing study frameworks, evaluating potential participants, and analyzing data are all essential parts of this role. If you’re wondering, What is it like to be a research nurse?, here’s what to know about this field.

What Is a Research Nurse and What Does a Research Nurse Do?

Research nurses are part of clinical research teams that conduct experiments to improve the quality of nursing and the patient experience. They might explore topics such as how nurse staffing ratios impact patient mortality in long-term care facilities, the impact of radiation exposure on oncology nurses , or the likelihood of physical injury to nurses across many settings.

Daily tasks of a research nurse might include:

• Acting as liaisons and advocates for patients participating in trials
• Data collection
• Preparing medications and other tools used in the experiment
• Administering experimental medications or treatments
• Monitoring for side effects
• Documentation
• Applying for grants to fund the research
• Contributing articles to research journals

Research nurses can work in a variety of settings that include:

• Government agencies
• Teaching hospitals
• Medical manufacturing
• Pharmaceutical companies

How to Become a Research Nurse: 4 Steps

Step 1: go to nursing school.

Any nursing role starts with education. In the case of research nursing, a bachelor’s of science in nursing (BSN) is the gold-standard degree. A BSN program will help you learn the basic skills of clinical nursing, like inserting IVs, assessing patients , and developing critical thinking skills. You’ll also learn about research ethics, data synthesis, and leadership.

Step 2: Pass the NCLEX-RN

Once you’ve graduated from nursing school, you qualify to take the National Council Licensure exam for registered nurses — the NCLEX-RN. This test is designed to evaluate your readiness to practice as an entry-level nurse. Once you pass, you’re ready to begin your career in clinical practice. Learn more about studying for the new NCLEX .

Step 3: Gain Experience

Working in a clinical setting will help you gain critical thinking and clinical skills. Many new graduate nurses begin their careers in an acute care setting, such as med-surg . Research roles typically require a few years of nursing experience, and this is a great time to gain additional training, attend courses in clinical research, or earn an entry-level certification.

Research nurses tend to choose a specific area of focus, so gaining experience in the specialty you’d like to research could be helpful. Specialized clinical research areas include:

• Obstetrics and gynecology
• Cardiovascular
• Psychiatry and behavioral health

Step 4: Enter Research Nursing

Once you’ve gained some experience, you can start applying for roles in clinical nursing research. One of the joys of nursing is the ongoing learning opportunities — you’re never done growing as a nurse. Earning additional certifications, joining professional organizations , and gaining additional degrees will also help you leverage higher pay and authority.

Research Nurse Certifications

Although certification isn’t necessary to become a research nurse, it may increase your job prospects by showing commitment to the field. They also advance your knowledge, and could make you a more confident clinician. Some research certifications are not unique to nurses but are for clinical researchers as a whole. Examples include:

• Association of Clinical Research Professionals — Certified Professional ( ACRP-CP )
• Certified Clinical Research Associate ( CCRA )
• Certified Clinical Research Coordinator ( CCRC )
• American Board of Nursing Specialties — Clinical Research Nurse Certification ( CRNCC )
• Society of Clinical Research Associates — Clinical Research Professional ( CCRP )

What Are Some Good Research Skills to Develop?

Honing these qualities will increase the odds of success on your path of how to become a research nurse:

Attention to detail: These nurses must closely monitor patients for any changes or side effects, pay attention to data trends, administer exact amounts of medication, and other tasks requiring close attention to detail to ensure the experiment is conducted safely.

Clear communication: Research nurses must ensure the test subjects are given informed consent, discuss findings with other members of the team, and convince potential donors to fund research projects. They may also be responsible for communicating orders such as labs or medications to the bedside nurse for study participants in the hospital. Many studies are time-sensitive, so nurse researchers must provide clear communication so orders are carried out appropriately.

Integrity: Honesty, responsibility, and reliability are some of the traits necessary to ensure  ethics are upheld in clinical research. Even after a research trial is approved by an  institutional review board (IRB) , ethical concerns may arise. It’s the nurse’s responsibility to advocate for the patient’s rights as a human subject of research when needed.

Writing skills: Research nurses must write grants to fund their experiments, contribute to medical journals, and be able to clearly and accurately describe the experiment when presenting the research to those who would benefit from the findings.

Analytical thinking: They must think critically to find correlations between data, contribute to planning the research methodology, and be able to present the research in ways that are understandable to a variety of lay people.

Research Nurse Salary and Job Outlook

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, research nurses, also known as medical scientists , earn an average of $112,380 per year, and employment is projected to grow 10% over the next decade, which is much faster than the average for all other occupations.

Ready to Research?

Now that you know how to become a research nurse, you might be curious about current nursing roles in your area. Let us know which specialty nursing jobs you’re looking for, and we’ll match you with open positions that align with your goals.

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How to Become a Research Nurse

The potential for medical research to contribute to advances in health care is enormous. In 2022 alone, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) lauded the role of research in:

• Identifying ways to strengthen the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines
• Developing a treatment to delay the onset of diabetes
• Creating processes that could potentially repair organ damage after a stroke or a heart attack
• Discovering interventions to ensure that individuals exercise regularly

Medical research involves the efforts of many professionals who serve in a variety of roles. Research nurses, for example, play one of the most essential roles in medical research. Combining their expertise in patient care with efforts to advance medical science, research nurses have the opportunity to make lasting impacts in health care. Individuals who are considering enrolling in an online nursing program can benefit from exploring how to become a research nurse and what the role entails.

The Role of a Research Nurse

Research nurses ensure the health and safety of patients who participate in medical research projects such as clinical trials. They are critical in balancing the protection of patients’ health and privacy with the goals of medical research. They also serve a key role as a liaison between patients, patients’ families, and research teams.

Research nurses work in settings such as acute care facilities, clinics, and medical units specifically devoted to research. They can also work for organizations such as biotechnology or pharmaceutical companies, or regulatory agencies.

Responsibilities of Research Nurses

Working as a research nurse involves a range of responsibilities. The NIH groups those responsibilities into the following domains:

• Conducting research study management duties
• Contributing to clinical science
• Ensuring coordination and continuity of care
• Performing the responsibilities of clinical practice
• Protecting human subjects

The day-to-day responsibilities of research nurses include duties such as:

• Administering new treatments
• Collecting data from medical tests
• Communicating with patients and their families regarding the expectations and goals for a clinical trial
• Documenting the results of medical study research
• Interviewing patients before they undergo a new procedure
• Monitoring and recording patients’ progress following an experimental treatment
• Supervising patients to ensure they follow the protocols of a research study

Contributions of Research Nurses

Research nurses received significant recognition for their important contributions to developing treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, but they have been instrumental in medical research since the early 1900s. Research nurses have made notable contributions leading to advancements in various areas of health care, such as:

• Behavioral health
• Critical care
• Infectious disease
• Neuroscience

Specific examples of their contributions include research nurses’ participation in studies that:

• Evaluate HIV risk screening and testing tools for vulnerable children
• Analyze the use of chemotherapy to treat cancer
• Explore the use of drugs to reduce bone fractures in people who have Parkinson’s disease

How to Become a Research Nurse: Key Steps in the Process

Although there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to becoming a research nurse, those interested in this field can take certain steps to prepare for the role.

Earn a Bachelor of Science in Nursing

Becoming a research nurse typically entails earning a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree. Earning a BSN enables individuals to acquire fundamental nursing expertise, as well as hone their skills in areas such as clinical decision-making, leadership, and working on interdisciplinary teams.

Become Licensed as a Registered Nurse

Research nurses also need to hold a registered nurse (RN) license, which they can obtain by passing the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX). After passing the exam, individuals can apply to the board of nursing in their state to obtain licensure as an RN.

RNs who have not earned their BSN can take advantage of RN to Bachelor of Science in Nursing programs that are specifically designed for them to complete their degrees.

Gain Nursing Experience

RNs typically gain several years of nursing experience prior to becoming research nurses. This experience allows them to develop and hone essential skills, including those related to direct patient care, as well as explore which field of research interests them the most.

Consider Earning an Advanced Degree and Certification

Some research nurse positions require nurses to hold an advanced degree, such as a Master of Science in Nursing or a Doctor of Nursing Practice.

Earning certifications also can boost a research nurse’s credentials. For example:

• The Association of Clinical Research Professionals offers certifications such as Certified Clinical Research Associate (CCRA) and Certified Clinical Research Coordinator (CCRC).
• The Clinical Research Nurse Certification Council offers the Clinical Research Nurse (CRN) certification.

Research Nurses Help to Shape the Future of Health Care and Their Own Profession

In entering the field of research nursing, nurses have the opportunity to influence care delivery, contributing to the development of new treatments and best practices for medical providers. Research nurses also have a hand in shaping health policy and the models of health care that can mold the future of nursing practice itself.

The research in which nurses participate ultimately enables them to give back to the profession they love. For example:

A 2021 report in BMC Nursing noted that research has enabled nurses to:

• Standardize nursing practices
• Improve patient outcomes
• Strengthen the quality of health care
• Reduce the cost of health care

A 2022 report in the Journal of Clinical Nursing noted that research specifically focused on nursing science has helped to develop interventions that nurses can use to:

• Improve the comfort levels of critically ill patients
• Support the emotional well-being of patients
• Improve patients’ quality of life following critical illnesses or injuries

Advancing Health Care Through Research

Research nurses have the opportunity to work on the cutting edge of medical innovation. In the pursuit of advancing health care, research nurses conduct meaningful work that can lead to significant improvements in people’s lives.

Individuals who are interested in working in this field should explore The University of Tulsa’s online RN to Bachelor of Science in Nursing program to learn how it can help them achieve their professional ambitions. Equipping students with skills in areas such as the examination of research and the continual evaluation of nursing care, the program could set the stage for you to work toward a career in medical research. Begin your journey to a fulfilling nursing career today.

Recommended Readings

How the Theory of Human Caring Applies to Nursing

What Can You Do With a BSN?

What Is Roy’s Adaptation Model of Nursing?

American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, “Why Should I Participate in Nursing Research?”

American Nurses Association, How to Become a Research Nurse

American Nurses Association, What Is Evidence-Based Practice in Nursing?

Applied Clinical Trials, “The Largest Parkinson’s Disease Study Ever Attempted Is Being Made Possible Only with Mobile Research Nurses”

Asia-Pacific Journal of Oncology Nursing, “The Oncology Clinical Research Nurse Study Co-ordinator: Past, Present, and Future”

Association of Clinical Research Professionals, ACRP Certifications

BioSpace, “A Guide to Becoming a Clinical Research Nurse”

BMC Nursing, “Evidence-Based Practice Beliefs and Implementations: A Cross-Sectional Study Among Undergraduate Nursing Students”

Canadian Oncology Nursing Journal, “Oncology Clinical Trials Nursing: A Scoping Review”

Clinical Research Nurse Certification Council, About Certification

International Association of Clinical Research Nurses, IACRN Publications

Journal of Clinical Nursing, “A Practice-Based Model to Guide Nursing Science and Improve the Health and Well-Being of Patients and Caregivers”

Journal of Research in Nursing, “Nurses in Clinical Trials: Perceptions of Impact on the Research Enterprise”

Massachusetts General Hospital, MGH Clinical Research Nurses

Mayo Clinic, Research Department and Divisions, Nursing

National Institutes of Health, “2022 Research Highlights”

National Institutes of Health, Nursing at the NIH Clinical Center

ONS Voice, “Nursing Roles in Clinical Trials”

PLOS ONE, “HIV Risk Screening and HIV Testing Among Orphans and Vulnerable Children in Community Settings in Tanzania: Acceptability and Fidelity to Lay-Cadre Administration of the Screening Tool”

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How Does Research Start?

Capili, Bernadette PhD, NP-C

Bernadette Capili is director of the Heilbrunn Family Center for Research Nursing, Rockefeller University, New York City. This manuscript was supported in part by grant No. UL1TR001866 from the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences Clinical and Translational Science Awards Program. Contact author: [email protected] . The author has disclosed no potential conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise. A podcast with the author is available at www.ajnonline.com .

Editor's note: This is the first article in a new series on clinical research by nurses. The series is designed to give nurses the knowledge and skills they need to participate in research, step by step. Each column will present the concepts that underpin evidence-based practice—from research design to data interpretation. The articles will also be accompanied by a podcast offering more insight and context from the author.

This article—the first in a new series on clinical research by nurses—focuses on how to start the research process by identifying a topic of interest and developing a well-defined research question.

Clinical research aims to deliver health care advancements that are “safe, beneficial, and cost-effective.” 1 It applies a methodical approach to developing studies that generate high-quality evidence to support changes in clinical practice. This is a stepwise process that attempts to limit the chances of errors, random or systematic, that can compromise conclusions and invalidate findings. 2 Nurses need to be well versed in the research in their field in order to find the best evidence to guide their clinical practice and to develop their own research. To effectively use the literature for these purposes, it is imperative to understand the principles of critical appraisal and basic study design.

There are many roles for nurses in research. Nurses can be consumers who stay abreast of current issues and trends in their specialty area, nurse champions who initiate quality improvement projects guided by the best clinical evidence, members of an interprofessional research team helping to address a complex health problem, or independent nurse scientists developing a line of scientific inquiry. Regardless of the nurse's role, a common goal of clinical research is to understand health and illness and to discover novel methods to detect, diagnose, treat, and prevent disease.

This column is the first in a series on the concepts of clinical research using a step-by-step approach. Each column will build on earlier columns to provide an overview of the essential components of clinical research. The focus of this inaugural column is how to start the research process, which involves the identification of the topic of interest and the development of a well-defined research question. This article also discusses how to formulate quantitative and qualitative research questions.

IDENTIFYING A TOPIC OF INTEREST

The motivation to explore an area of inquiry often starts with an observation that leads to questioning why something occurs or what would happen if we tried a different approach. Speaking to patients and hearing their concerns about how to manage specific conditions or symptoms is another way to be inspired. Exploring new technologies, examining successful techniques, and adapting the procedures of other fields or disciplines can be other sources for new insights and discoveries. 2 Nurses working in a cardiac setting, for example, may take an interest in using fitness watches to monitor adherence to a walking program to reduce blood pressure and body weight. Their ease of use, cost, and availability may be what draws nurses to exploring the potential uses of this technology. Since the goal of research is to improve patients' lives, it's vital that anyone engaging in clinical research be curious and willing to understand clinical issues and explore the problems that need solving.

Reviewing the literature . Developing a research project requires in-depth knowledge of the chosen area of inquiry (for example, the etiology and treatment of hypertension, which is the hypothetical area of inquiry in this article). Ways to become immersed in the topic include speaking to experts in the field and conducting a comprehensive literature review. Two main types of review found in the literature are narrative and systematic.

Narrative reviews present an overview of current issues and trends in the area of interest and can address clinical, background, or theoretical questions. They can summarize current findings, identify gaps in research, and provide suggestions for next steps. 3 On the downside, narrative reviews can be biased because they are based on the author's experience and interpretation of findings and lack systematic and objective selection criteria. 4

Systematic reviews differ from narrative reviews in that they use a systematic approach to select, appraise, and evaluate the literature. Systematic reviews start with a clinical question to be answered by the review. They use clearly defined criteria to determine which articles to include and which to exclude. Systematic reviews can help nurses understand what works and what doesn't in terms of intervention-based research, and they are excellent resources if an area of inquiry is an intervention-based project. (For the categories of interventional studies, see Table 1 .)

Reviewing citations from published papers is another way to find relevant publications. A frequently cited publication in a particular area may indicate a landmark paper in which the authors present an important discovery or identify a critical issue. An essential goal of the literature review is to ensure that previous studies in the area of interest are located and understood. Previous studies provide insight into recent discoveries in the field, as well as into the dilemmas and challenges others encountered in conducting the research.

DEVELOPING THE RESEARCH QUESTION

The two main branches of research methods are experimental and observational. Randomized controlled trials and non–randomized controlled trials belong in the experimental category, while analytical studies with control groups and descriptive studies without control groups belong in the observational category. Types of analytical studies include cohort and case–control studies; types of descriptive studies include ecological and cross-sectional studies, and case reports.

Despite their differences, the common thread among these research methods is the research question. This question helps guide the study design and is the foundation for developing the study. In the health sciences, the question needs to pass the “So what?” test. That is, is the issue relevant, is studying it feasible, and will it advance the field?

Cummings and colleagues use the mnemonic FINER ( F easible, I nteresting, N ovel, E thical, R elevant) to define the characteristics of a good research question. 2

Feasible . Feasibility is a critical element of research. Research questions must be answerable and focus on clear approaches to measuring or quantifying change or outcome. For example, assessing blood pressure for a study on the benefits of reducing hypertension is feasible because methods to measure blood pressure, the stages of hypertension, and the positive results associated with achieving normal blood pressure are established. For research requiring human participants, approaches to recruiting and enrolling them in the study require careful planning. Strategies must consider where and how to recruit the best participants to fit the study population under investigation. In addition, an adequate number of study participants is necessary in order to conduct the study. The allotted time frame to complete the study, the workforce to perform the study, and the budget to conduct the study must also be realistic. Research studies funded by private or public sponsors usually have defined time frames to completion, such as two or three years. Funders may also request a timeline showing when various aspects of the research will be achieved (institutional review board [IRB] approval, recruitment of participants, data analysis, and so on).

Interesting . Several factors may drive a researcher's interest in an area of inquiry. Cummings and colleagues use the term interesting to describe an area the investigator believes is important to examine. 2 For some investigators, an experience or an observation is the motivation for evaluating the underpinnings of a situation or condition. For some, the possibility of obtaining financial support, either through private or public funding, is an important consideration in choosing a research question or study subject. For others, pursuing a particular research question is the logical next step in their program of research.

Novel . Novel research implies that the study provides new information that contributes to or advances a field of inquiry. This may include research that confirms or refutes earlier study results or that replicates past research to validate scientific findings. When replicating studies, improving previously used research methods (for example, increasing sample size, outcome measures, or the follow-up period) can strengthen the project. A study replicating an earlier hypertension study may add a way to assess dietary sodium intake physiologically instead of only by collecting food records.

Ethical . It is mandatory that research proceed in an ethical manner, from the protection of human and animal subjects to data collection, data storage, and the reporting of research results. Research studies must obtain IRB approval before they can proceed. The IRB is an ethics committee that reviews the proposed research plan to ensure it has adequate safeguards for the well-being of the study participants. It also evaluates the potential risk versus benefit of the proposed study. If the level of risk posed by the study outweighs the benefits of the potential outcome, the IRB may require changes to the research plan to improve the safety profile, or it may reject the study. For example, an IRB may not approve a study proposing to use a placebo for comparison when well-established and effective treatments are available. The National Institutes of Health offers an excellent educational resource, Clinical Research Training ( https://ocr.od.nih.gov/clinical_research_training.html ), a free online tutorial on ethics, patient safety, protocol implementation, and regulatory research. Registration is required and each module takes 15 to 90 minutes to complete.

Relevant . Relevant research questions address critical issues. A relevant question will add to the current knowledge in the field. It may also change clinical practice or influence policy. The question must be timely and appropriate for the study population under investigation. For instance, to continue our hypothetical hypertension study example, for individuals diagnosed with hypertension, it is recognized that reducing the dietary intake of sodium and increasing potassium can lower blood pressure and reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke. Therefore, in conducting a dietary study to reduce blood pressure, an investigator might target the intakes of both sodium and potassium. Focusing solely on one and not the other ignores the best available evidence in the field.

GUIDELINES FOR QUESTION DEVELOPMENT: PICO, PEO

Guidelines are available to help frame the research question, and PICO and PEO are among the most common. PICO is best suited for quantitative studies, while PEO is appropriate for qualitative studies. Quantitative and qualitative methodologies approach research using different lenses. In quantitative research, numerical data is produced, necessitating statistical analysis. Qualitative research generates themes, and the outcome of interest is the understanding of phenomena and experiences. It's important to note that some topics may not fit the PICO or PEO frameworks. In those cases, novice researchers may want to consult with a mentor or academic research adviser for help in formulating the research question.

PICO questions incorporate the following components: P opulation, I ntervention, C omparison, and O utcome.

• Population is the people or community affected by a specific health condition or problem (for instance, middle-age adults ages 45 to 65 with stage 1 hypertension, or older adults ages 65 and older with stage 1 hypertension living in nursing homes).
• Intervention is the process or action under investigation. Interventions can be pharmaceutical agents, devices, or procedures; changes in a process; or patient education on diet and exercise. They can be either investigational or already available to consumers or health care professionals.
• Comparison means the group or intervention being compared with the intervention under investigation (for instance, those eating a vegan diet compared with those eating a Mediterranean-style diet).
• Outcome is the planned measure to determine the effect of an intervention on the population under study. For example, in the study comparing a vegan diet with a Mediterranean-style diet, the outcomes of interest could be the percent reductions in body weight and blood pressure.
• PEO questions incorporate the following components: P opulation, E xposure, and O utcome.
• Population centers on those affected and their problems (for example, middle-age adults who have hypertension and smoke).
• Exposure focuses on the area of interest (for example, experience with smoking cessation programs or triggers of smoking). Since qualitative studies can denote a broad area of research or specific subcategories of topics, the exposure viewpoint depends on the framing or wording of the research question and the goals of the project. 5
• Outcome might encompass a person's experience with smoking cessation and the themes associated with quitting and relapsing. Since the PEO model is best suited for qualitative studies, the outcome tends to include the definition of a person's experiences in certain areas or discover processes that happen in specific locations or contexts. 6

How to formulate a research question using the PICO and PEO frameworks is reviewed in Table 2 .

GOING FORWARD

This has been a brief review of how to find an area of interest for your research and how to form an effective research question. For some, the inspiration for research will come from observations and experiences in the work setting, colleagues, investigations in other fields, and past research. As has been noted, before delving into developing a research protocol it's important to master the subject of interest by speaking with experts and gaining a firm understanding of the literature in the field. Then, consider using the FINER mnemonic as a guide to determine if your research question can pass the “So what?” test and the PICO or PEO model to structure the question. Formulating the appropriate research question is vital to conducting your research because the question is the starting point to selecting the study design, population of interest, interventions or exposure, and outcomes. The next column will discuss the process for selecting the study participants.

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How to Become a Nurse Researcher

Duties, responsibilities, requirements, certifications, job outlook, and salary.

There are a variety of nursing specialties that Registered Nurses (RNs) can pursue upon earning their license. Every nursing career has its own distinctive job responsibilities, work environments, and perks. There are also varying educational requirements depending on the position. In this article, we’ll take a look at the RNs that are finding new ways to save lives,  Nurse Researchers .

Nurse Researchers are highly trained nurses that conduct scientific research into various aspects of healthcare. Nurse Researchers create and implement scientific studies to improve healthcare services and patient outcomes.

(Click here to see our full list of  highest paying nursing careers )

For anyone looking to play a part in changing healthcare for the better, here’s a guide on  how to become a Nurse Researcher . With this guide, you will understand the role of a Nurse Researcher, their job responsibilities, educational requirements, job outlook, and salary.

Nurse Researcher Definition

What is a nurse researcher.

A Nurse Researcher is an Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN) that studies various aspects of healthcare and illness. It is their responsibility to apply the rigor of scientific research to discover new methods for improving healthcare services and outcomes.

Nurse Researchers have advanced training in scientific research and data collection in addition to their nursing training and certification.

Nurse Researcher: Job Description

What does a nurse researcher do.

As previously mentioned, Nurse Researchers design and implement scientific studies to improve healthcare services and patient outcomes. Their area of study within healthcare depends on their specialization and where they work. Some Nurse Researchers study diseases and illnesses, while others may study clinical trials to oversee a new treatment method or medication.

Nurse Researchers are also responsible for finding subjects that are best suited to participate in their studies. Upon completion of their study, it’s their responsibility to compile the data into a report to share with their immediate supervisors. Eventually, their research findings may also circulate to the larger healthcare community and public.

Nurse Researcher Jobs

Where do nurse researchers work.

Due to their high level of training and expertise, Nurse Researchers can work in a variety of healthcare settings. These include hospitals, research organizations, universities, and government agencies.

Some of the day-to-day responsibilities of Nurse Researchers include:

• Creating and implementing scientific research studies
• Supervising and observing patient care, treatments, or procedures
• Collecting and analyzing data and information throughout their study
• Compiling research findings into a report
• Presenting research outcomes to superiors
• Presenting results at conferences, meetings, and other speaking engagements
• Recruiting participants for studies

Nurse Researcher Schooling & Certification

How long does it take to become a nurse researcher, what degree do you need to be a nurse researcher.

Like many of the highest-paid nursing jobs, Nurse Researchers must be prepared to dedicate around 6 to 8 years towards higher education. Employers also favor candidates with sufficient experience in conducting clinical research. For that reason, many Nurse Researchers begin their careers as Research Assistants to gain enough experience for this highly specialized role.

Here are the steps required to become a Nurse Researcher:

1. Earn your Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree

The first step to becoming a Nurse Researcher is earning your BSN or Bachelor of Science in Nursing Degree . A BSN program will take about three to four years to complete unless you’ve already earned your associate’s degree in nursing (ADN). Students who’ve already earned their ADN can enroll in an  RN-BSN program  which can be completed in as little as 20 months.

If you are a Licensed Vocational Nurse with an associate’s degree in vocational nursing (ASVN), you can also earn your BSN degree through an advanced placement option ( LVN to BSN ). This accelerated nursing program allows you to skip the first year (three semesters) of the BSN program.

2. Pass the NCLEX-RN exam

Once you’ve earned your BSN, you’ll have to pass the National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses (NCLEX-RN) to earn your nursing license. With the NCLEX, you’ll be certified to enter the workforce as a Registered Nurse (RN).

(Click here to learn more about the NCLEX-RN examination )

3. Earn a Master’s or Doctoral degree

Earning a Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) or doctorate degree from an accredited institution is required to become a Nurse Researcher. An MSN degree is the most common graduate degree earned by Nurse Researchers. You may also obtain your Ph.D. from an accredited institution. Depending on the type of research, some Nurse Researcher positions may require a Ph.D.. MSN degrees usually take about 18–24 months to complete, while doctorate degrees typically require 2–3 years of full-time education.

4. Gain experience working in clinical research

In order to be eligible for a Nurse Researcher certification exam, you’ll have to gain experience working as an RN in clinical research. The Society for Clinical Research Associates (SOCRA) requires two years of practice as a full-time Registered Nurse conducting clinical research to be eligible for their exam.

The Association of Clinical Research Professionals (ACRP) also requires a requisite number of hours of professional experience working as a Nurse Researcher prior to sitting for many of their exams.   

5. Pass the Nurse Researcher Certification exam

Upon receiving your Master’s or Doctorate degree and completing your eligibility requirements, you may be required to earn a research certification for the position you wish to obtain. The Society for Clinical Research Associates (SOCRA) offers the Certified Clinical Research certification (CCRP).

The Association of Clinical Research Professionals (ACRP) offers several certifications in clinical research as well.

The eligibility requirements for each certification vary by exam. It’s crucial that you determine which certification is best for the position you are applying for and the career path you’d like to take.

Nurse Researcher Salary

How much do nurse researchers make.

Unfortunately, the Bureau of Labor Statistics does not report any specific data on income for Nurse Researchers. However, it does indicate the salary* range for Nurse Practitioners, which include Nurse Researchers. As of May 2021, Nurse Practitioners earned an average annual salary* of about $118,000 . The lowest 10 percent earned less than $80,000 and the highest 10 percent earned more than $163,000.

Highest Paying Industries for Nurse Researchers

According to the BLS , these are the industries where you’re most likely to find the top-paying jobs for Nurse Practitioners:

Highest Paying States for Nurse Researchers

According to the BLS , these are the states where you’re most likely to find the top-paying jobs for Nurse Practitioners:

Highest Paying Cities for Nurse Researchers

According to the BLS , these are the cities where you’re most likely to find the top-paying jobs for Nurse Practitioners:

What is the Job Outlook for Nurse Researchers?

According to the BLS , the overall employment of Nurse Practitioners (including Nurse Researchers) is projected to grow 45% from 2020 to 2030, which is much faster than the average for all occupations (8%).

APRNs, such as Nurse Researchers, will be increasingly utilized in team-based models of care. They will also be needed to care for and research the large, aging baby-boom population.

Nurse Researcher Career

Are you ready to start your career as a nurse researcher.

Although the educational requirements may be extensive, the boost in salary* and job outlook make up for the lost time.

Nurse Researchers have the unique opportunity to improve our healthcare system and patient outcomes. The job is perfect for anyone who feels passionate about using scientific research to change the world. The work they do has the potential to affect millions of lives.

If you feel ready to begin your journey as a Nurse Researcher, you can start by earning your BSN degree at Provo College. Click here to learn more about our  BSN program .

While this blog may occasionally contain information that relates to Provo College's programs or courses, the majority of information provided within this blog is for general informational purposes only and is not intended to represent the specific details of any educational offerings or opinions of Provo College.

*Please note that wage data provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) or other third-party sources may not be an accurate reflection of all areas of the country, may not account for the employees’ years of experience, and may not reflect the wages or outlook of entry-level employees, such as graduates of our program. (accessed on 4/5/2024)

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Research Nurse

By EveryNurse Staff on January 12, 2023

A Research Nurse is a professional member of a research team who provides direct patient care for participants in clinical trials. In these studies, volunteers take part in activities related to medical testing and experiments that will help researchers understand more about human health and disease. The Research Nurse ensures that the patients’ rights, safety, and well-being are protected at all times.

The work of a Research Nurse is both challenging and rewarding. It requires specialized training in the medical field, as well as understanding research methods and state regulations pertaining to health studies. Nursing research also allows nurses to use their skills and knowledge at their fullest potential while improving people’s lives by advancing medicine.

What Is a Research Nurse? 

A Research Nurse provides care and treatment for human participants involved in medical or scientific experiments or studies. They are responsible for monitoring the health and safety of patients under strict conditions of regulatory oversight, and for collecting and interpreting data for research purposes.

In this role, a Research Nurse must have excellent knowledge, technical skills, and understanding of the principles and practices of research that will ensure high standards of patient care. In addition to caring for patients, a Research Nurse will also be responsible for ensuring that compliance with ethical standards is maintained throughout the study.

What Does a Research Nurse Do? 

The tasks and responsibilities of a Research Nurse will vary depending on the research objectives, nature of the study, and study protocols. A medical study may involve the testing and evaluation of new drugs and biological products, and a Research Nurse will be responsible for ensuring that these drugs are delivered safely to the participants. The Nurse will also monitor side effects or complications throughout the study, and document all relevant information related to medication administration.

A Research Nurse may also be involved in clinical trials that test health care procedures. For example, a new surgery may be evaluated to determine its effectiveness and safety. In this case, the Nurse will monitor patients following the surgery and collect data (such as vital signs) that can be used to evaluate outcomes of interest.

Research Nurse Job Description

• Conduct health screenings and tests to ensure that patients are clear of any disease or infection that might affect the study
• Prepare and monitor drug dosage levels and other treatments for participants in clinical trials
• Perform diagnostic tests and monitor participants’ health through regular assessments
• Observe participants for signs of improvement or decline, document any changes in health status, and provide clinical care where necessary
• Keep detailed records of all data obtained from patients including immediate patient reactions, side effects, and medical histories
• Ensure that all necessary safety protocols are followed during clinical trials
• Respond to emergencies and provide medical care as necessary
• Collaborate with the research team to ensure that trials and studies run smoothly and safely
• Supervise the work of other nursing staff, assistants, and volunteers

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Where do research nurses work .

Research nurses are primarily employed in a clinical research setting, such as dedicated clinical research units located in academic medical centers, research laboratories, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and medical research organizations. A clinical research nurse may also be part of a multidisciplinary team that forms the permanent healthcare infrastructure of a research unit that is made available to any researcher who is accessing a facility.

Other settings where clinical research nurses can find work include:

• Academic Research Centers
• Hospital Inpatient units
• Primary Care Facilities
• Long-Term Care Facilities
• Research and Development Settings
• Insurance Providers
• Home Healthcare Agencies
• Biotechnology Laboratories

Research Nurse Jobs

The research field is a growing area of healthcare that offers a diverse range of career opportunities. Many research nurses begin their careers as bedside nurses and then work toward gaining the knowledge and experience required to specialize in clinical research nursing. Depending on their specialty and career goals, skilled nurses fill a variety of different roles:

Clinical Research Nurse

Clinical research coordinator, research nurse supervisor, research nurse practitioner, principal investigator.

A clinical research coordinator ensures that a clinical trial runs smoothly. They are responsible for assigning tasks to nursing teams, organizing data collection, and following up on safety protocols. They will also help to educate and prepare participants for their roles in the trial, as well as develop systems to monitor and report trial progress and outcomes.

A research nurse supervisor is responsible for the day-to-day running of a clinical trial. They work closely with other members of the team to ensure that all aspects of the trial are progressing as planned. They are often responsible for determining which participants are eligible to participate in a study, evaluating participant progress, and ensuring compliance with safety protocols.

A research nurse practitioner is a registered nurse who has earned a master’s degree and additional certification in order to take on licensure as an advanced practice registered nurse (APRN). Research nurse practitioners will typically perform the duties of other nurses on the team, such as administering medications and collecting data. In addition, they may also serve as educators for participants and may provide expertise in the design of clinical trials, data analysis, and regulatory affairs.

The Principal Investigator (PI) is responsible for the overall management of the clinical trial. They are responsible for the preparation, conduct, and administration of the trial as well as for ensuring compliance with federal and institutional guidelines. A PI will typically serve as a member of the executive board that manages a clinical trial from beginning to end and will oversee the work of all research nurses involved.

A PI is ultimately responsible for ensuring that research objectives are achieved, as well as managing budgets and timelines. They may also be responsible for training, evaluating participant safety data, and determining which treatments to test in follow-up trials.

How to Become a Research Nurse

Clinical trials play a crucial role in the development of new drugs and other medical technologies that can improve health outcomes for patients and influence healthcare on a larger scale. The professionals who conduct these trials must have specialized knowledge in the field of medicine and in the intricacies of clinical research. In addition to being a registered nurse, nurses who work in this area usually have a master’s degree or a Ph.D. in nursing, medicine, biomedical science, or a related field.

Here, we explore the steps you can take to become a research nurse:

• Earn a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN)
• Pass the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX-RN)
• Obtain a Registered Nurse License
• Gain at Least One Year of Experience in a Clinical Research Setting
• Earn a Master of Science in Nursing or Ph.D. in Nursing (Recommended))
• Obtain Certification as a Clinical Research Professional

1. Earn a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN)

Clinical research professionals come from a wide variety of backgrounds. They may have backgrounds in fields such as nursing, medicine, pharmacy, informatics, or biomedical science. However, a common foundation for all professionals in the field is a bachelor’s degree.

Research nurses will find that a Bachelor of Science in Nursing is best-suited to their long-term career goals. A BSN degree gives students a solid foundation in anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, medical ethics, and other areas of patient care that are essential for research nurses. Students in BSN programs also learn how to facilitate communication between healthcare providers and develop critical thinking skills that are highly transferrable to the clinical research setting.

2. Pass the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX-RN)

Once you have earned your bachelor’s degree, the next step to becoming a research nurse is passing the NCLEX-RN. This test assesses the candidate’s knowledge of nursing procedures and practices, as well as their ability to provide patient care within the requirements of each state. The exam is administered by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) , which sets the exam’s content and establishes its standards.

3. Obtain a Registered Nurse License

After graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and passing the NCLEX-RN, your next step will be to apply for a license in the state where you want to work. The Board of Nursing in your state establishes the specific requirements for licensure and administers the process of licensure application and renewal.

In addition to the basic education and testing requirements that are uniform across all states, the state board will also require that you meet its additional criteria for licensure. These criteria are likely to include a criminal background check, drug test, and personal disclosures about any type of disciplinary action taken against the applicant for violations of federal or state laws.

4. Gain at Least One Year of Experience in a Clinical Research Setting

After receiving your bachelor’s degree and obtaining your RN license, it’s important to gain work experience in a clinical research setting to progress in your career. Obtaining professional experience at this stage of your career is crucial because it allows you to become familiar with the research environment and establish a foundation of clinical expertise that you can build on as your career progresses.

Obtaining clinical research experience will also help you meet the admissions requirements for graduate programs in nursing research. Many such programs require applicants to have at least one year of experience in a clinical setting before they will consider them for enrollment. Additionally, this work experience will help you meet the eligibility requirements for ACRP certification, which currently stands at 3,000 hours of professional experience in a clinical research setting.

5. Earn a Master of Science in Nursing or Ph.D. in Nursing (Recommended)

Earning a graduate-level nursing degree is not necessary in order to work in a clinical research setting. There are many RNs in the field who have made a successful career out of their bachelor’s degree alone. However, there are many benefits to pursuing post-graduate education in the form of a Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) or Ph.D. in Nursing (Ph.D.) .

The primary benefit of pursuing either of these degrees is that it can help you qualify for advanced positions in the clinical research industry that require a master’s or doctorate degree as a minimum qualification. Roles such as Clinical Research Coordinator, Project Manager, or Principal Investigator all typically require a master’s degree or higher.

6. Obtain Certification as a Clinical Research Professional

Certification as a clinical research professional demonstrates that you have the professional expertise, educational preparation, skill, and abilities to ethically and safely perform clinical research. The two major certifying bodies for clinical research professionals are the Association for Clinical Research Professionals (ACRP) and the Society of Clinical Research Associates (SCRA) .

Certification represents the industry’s most respected acknowledgment of clinical research competence and recognizes your commitment to the professional and ethical standards necessary for success in this highly regulated industry.

Research Nurse Salary

Research nurses are in high demand across the country, and average salaries reflect this. According to Salary.com , the average salary for a clinical research nurse is $88,305 per year and typically falls between $79,098 and $97,798. This average annual salary is approximately 10% higher than other registered nurses with similar educational backgrounds and experience.

Additional Resources for Research Nurses 

• Association of Clinical Research Professionals
• Council for the Advancement of Nursing Science
• Eastern Nursing Research Society (ENRS)
• Global Research Nurses
• International Association of Clinical Research Nurses (IACRN)
• Midwest Nursing Research Society (MNRS)
• National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR)
• Society of Clinical Research Associates (SOCRA)
• Southern Nursing Research Society (SNRS)

Clinical Research Nurse FAQ

According to Payscale.com, a clinical research nurse makes $72,272 per year. Like many nursing careers, years of experience is a factor that impacts pay. Location is another factor and one should consider factors like living costs. The salaries are generally lower than a clinical nursing role but find themselves working more predictable schedules.

Yes, this is one of the most exciting career paths for nurses. Clinical research nurses report greater job satisfaction per the research by Fawcett and McCulloch in 2014. This specialized career offers more predictable schedules and an opportunity to be part of an important step in the development of new treatments and cures to improve healthcare outcomes.

Clinical research nurses conduct research in clinical research units which include laboratories. This is a highly specific nursing career that requires work experience, an advanced degree focused on clinical research and trials, and board certification.

You must have an RN license and have a BSN degree. Typically, clinical research nurses have at least a Master of Science in Nursing (MSN). Many have a doctorate degree from an accredited institution. 

Some research nurses work for a few years before enrolling in school to get their advanced degrees, while others become an RN and quickly enroll. The path to a research track is different. There are so many variables that make it difficult to follow a universal approach.

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Clinical Research Training For Nurses: A Guide to Becoming a Clinical Research Nurse

Clinical research training for nurses, guide to becoming a clinical research nurse, what is clinical nursing research.

Nurses are known for providing direct care for patients. However, nurses may take up roles that are completely new to them within the world of clinical research. These roles include clinical research coordinator , educator and manager. They can also take up less traditional role like regulatory specialist, study monitor and IRB (institutional board review) admin.

Regulatory specialist: their activities relate mainly with preparing regulatory documents and communicating with regulatory bodies. Nurses can work as a regulatory affairs specialist, a regulatory operation coordinator, or a regulatory coordinator . They can work within government agencies, pharmaceutical companies, academic medical centers.

Study monitor: they monitor clinical research practices and make sure that it complies with necessary research protocols and regulations. They tend work at government agencies, biotechnology companies, pharmaceutical companies, contract research organizations, device manufacturers etc. Aspiring study monitors can enhance their qualifications with a Pharmacovigilance Certification .

Institutional Review Board (IRB) administrator: they are the professionals in charge of overseeing, administrating, implementing and managing IRB activities, like policies and procedures that relates to protecting human welfare. They can work at all IRBs: local, commercial or central IRB.

Nurses that have developed interest in the field of clinical research can join professional organizations. This provides them with the opportunity to network and continue their education through mediums like conferences, webinars, discussion groups, publications and online resources. These avenues serve as part of their clinical research training .

Certification is often a parameter used to measure professional expertise. This is based on criterion that reflects skill, knowledge, educational preparation, ability, and competence that are developed from experience in that area of specialization. Nurses that developed an interest in clinical research and have taken a clinical research training program have an opportunity to be certified through the:

Society for Clinical Research Professionals, Inc. (Certified Clinical Research Professionals)

Association for Clinical Research Professionals (Certified Clinical Research Associate or Certified Clinical Research Coordinator)

This field of clinical research gives nurses a chance, an opportunity to advance themselves professionally in a field that might not have been explored by them before. The benefits of having a registered nurse cover letter are insurmountable. This also provides a career path that can show family members the benefits of working in the medical field.

Nurses that have gone through the clinical research for nurses , otherwise called research nurse can carry out research on the various aspects of the human health, such as illness, pharmaceutical and health care methods and treatment plans. The main aim of this research is to improve the quality of health care service delivery. Helping patients and their family in a healthcare facility also brings a level of joy that is hard to find in many other career paths.

Roles of Research Nurses

They are responsible for designing and implementing research studies.

They observe procedures for treatment, collect and analyze data.

They report their research results to appropriate quarters.

They write articles and report their research findings in nursing or medical professional publications and journals.

They help in recruiting participants for studies and are involved in providing direct care for the participants.

Clinical research nurse salary can make use of their communication skills as well as their critical thinking skills gotten from their knowledge and experience in healthcare to further their career in this exciting way.

Know that future CRNs can speak to our 24/7 chat and phone advisors to request information on partial scholarships and payment plans for nurses.

2. Clinical Research Nurse Salary

The average pay for a Clinical Research Nurse is $31.28 per hour.

MD Anderson Cancer Center  Clinical Research Nurse salaries  - $71,503/yr

Northwestern University  Clinical Research Nurse salaries  - $75,005/yr

NIH  Clinical Research Nurse salaries  - $77,331/yr

CLINICAL RESEARCH NURSE JOB Description

A clinical research nurse conducts scientific research on different aspects of human health like illnesses, pharmaceuticals, treatment plans and healthcare methods. Their major goal is to improve the quality of healthcare services that are administered to the patients.

Source: Payscale

3. How do I get Clinical Research Nurse Experience?

Experience don’t just jump on you, you have to get it by practice. CCRPS affords you an opportunity to acquire knowledge in clinical research , and not just knowledge but experience as well. Registering for the appropriate course will boost your knowledge base and as well you get experience of clinical research first hand.

As a clinical research nurse, you will be at the forefront of new medical discoveries, and help develop breakthrough cures and medical treatments. The work that you do during your career can help some patients live longer or better quality of life. You may be responsible for studying diseases and disorders, as well as developing new treatment plans. You will also help test new treatments and medications that could possibly change the way a disease or disorder is perceived.

The field of clinical research can be very rewarding and fulfilling. A good research nurse is dedicated to their work and ready to take on everything that the profession throws their way. If you’re looking to pursue a research nursing career, you should have an excellent understanding of the research process as well as the specialty area that you’re studying.

Excellent communication skills are also a must. You must be able to effectively communicate with scientists, physicians, researchers, patients, and corporate executives.

4. What Does a Clinical Research Nurse Do?

The duties of a research nurse will typically depend on their employer and role. Some research nurses may be responsible for studying diseases, while others may help create and improve new medications and other treatments.

clinical research nursing scope and Standards of Practice

Clinical research nurses can take up clinical research jobs in institutions like research organizations, pharmaceutical companies, universities, research laboratories, government agencies and teaching hospitals.

The work that a research nurse does is quite exhaustive and it includes;

They use their knowledge of the basics of clinical research in designing and implementation of research studies.

Observation of the procedures for patient treatment, collection and analyzing of data.

They report their research findings to the relevant authorities. They may also have to present their results at health conferences and publish them in journals.

They write grant applications in order to secure funds to carry out the research.

They render assistance in the process of recruiting study subjects.

They provide direct treatment for research participants.

Research nurses that study diseases and illnesses will often perform a great deal of research, both by studying previous findings and observing patients. They may be required to examine medical journals, for instance, as well as observe, study, and care for patients suffering from a particular disease.

They make decisions based on the observations made as to which patients are the best candidates for certain clinical trials. During clinical trials , the research nurse will administer medications or perform other treatment procedures, During this process, research nurses must closely monitor each patient’s progress. This includes documenting side effects, drug interactions, and the overall efficiency of the medication.

Aside from caring for patients, documenting and recording information during clinical trials are the most important responsibility that a research nurse has. The information and data gathered during the research must be compiled into reports and handed over to senior clinical researchers or specialists.

5. How Do I Become a Research Nurse?

Don’t expect to become a research nurse overnight. It's a lot of work and you are expected to undergo years of training and experience.

The clinical research nurse job is a competitive one and certificates are not just handed out to anybody. The conditions to be eligible to take the certificate exam is that you must be an experienced registered nurse and your experience must include having thousands of hours of experience in the area of clinical research.

How to Become a Registered Nurse (RN) in 2020 that contains everything a person pursuing a nursing job should know - responsibilities, education, salaries and more.

The first step toward becoming a research nurse is to obtain a proper education. You can start with a bachelor’s degree in nursing, although many employers prefer that their research nurses have master’s degrees or even doctoral degrees in their chosen specialty. During your schooling, classes in research and statistics are a must and are courses in your chosen area of expertise.

According to clinical research job websites , many research nurses have a MSN degree and some have a PhD in nursing. Many of them attain these degrees of education in order to give them an edge on getting clinical research positions . While studying, courses in statistics and research are mandatory.

There are two main certifications that clinical research nurses can get from the Association of Clinical Research Professionals (ACRP). You can get certification to become a certified clinical research associate or you can choose to become a certified clinical research coordinator.

Take courses from CCRPS and learn more on how to become a clinical research nurse.

Discover more from Clinical Research Training | Certified Clinical Research Professionals Course

6. Clinical Research Nurse Requirements and Certifications & Nursing Cover Letter

A bachelor's degree in nursing does meet licensure requirements for graduates to become registered nurses (RNs), which qualifies individuals for the specialized certification. Bridge programs, such as an RN-to-Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), require previous nursing education for admission. Nursing students complete traditional classroom courses, laboratory experiences, and a clinical practicum in a medical setting, which includes a hospital, assisted living facility, and long term care center.

For specific education in clinical research , trained RNs enroll in graduate certificate and degree programs. There students are introduced to case studies, ethical research practices, and financial matters affecting the design, implementation, and funding of clinical research trials. In a master's program, studies in research ethics point students towards ethical research practices, including a discussion on human rights, misconduct, and conflicts of interest. Graduate programs will also include quantitative research and a capstone project.

All RN-to-BSN programs will require an RN license to enroll. Master's and graduate certificates will need a bachelor's degree with sufficient prerequisite coursework in the field. In addition, they will need letters of recommendation or reference, a personal statement, and GRE scores.

Becoming a nurse researcher which is a highly specialized career requires an advanced degree and training in informatics and research methodology and tools. The initial step for these individuals, or for any aspiring advanced practice nurse, is to earn a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree and pass the NCLEX-RN exam. Once a nurse has completed their degree and attained an RN license, the next step is to complete a Master's of Science (MSN) in Nursing program with a focus on research and writing. MSN courses prepare nurses for a career in research and usually include coursework in statistics, research for evidence-based practice, design and coordination of clinical trials , and advanced research methodology.

A TYPICAL JOB POSTING FOR A RESEARCH NURSE POSITION WOULD LIKELY INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING QUALIFICATIONS, AMONG OTHERS SPECIFIC TO THE TYPE OF EMPLOYER AND LOCATION:

MSN degree and valid RN license.

Experience conducting clinical research, including enrolling patients in research studies, Implementing research protocol and presenting findings.

Excellent attention to detail required in collecting and analyzing data.

Strong written and verbal communication skills for interacting with patients and reporting research findings.

For a person to practice nursing legally, acquiring of nursing credentials and certifications is very important. For instance, some nurses who achieve a master's degree (MSN) leave the patient care aspect of nursing, and practice in a more managerial role.

CRA JOB OPPORTUNITIES

If you choose to become a Clinical Research Associate (CRA), you will have a key role in the success of clinical trials. Most CRAs have a nursing background, like yours. You will be the primary contact and support for trial sites, ensuring that the study is conducted according to the protocol, ICH-GCP, regulatory requirements and standard operating procedures (SOPs).

The Clinical Research Associates also offers you the unique opportunity to have an exciting career in the research of drug and medical device development while making a difference in the lives of those around them.

Take courses from CCRPS and learn more on how to become a clinical research professional.

Speak to our 24/7 chat and phone advisors to request information on partial scholarships and payment plans for nurses.

About CCRPS

How much is a clinical research coordinator’s salary.

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Clinical research nursing

A one-stop-shop for nurses working in clinical research

Clinical research nurses play a vital role in delivering clinical research, and ultimately improving patient care.

Clinical research is essential.

It is the only evidence-based method of deciding whether a new approach to treatment or care is better than the current standard, and is essential to diagnose, treat, prevent, and cure disease. Clinical research nurses play a vital role in delivering clinical research, and ultimately improving patient care and treatment pathways.

Duties could include:

• supporting a patient through their treatment as part of a clinical trial
• preparing trial protocols and other trial-related documentation
• helping to develop new drugs, treatments, care pathways or regimens for patients
• dealing with data collection
• submitting study proposals for regulatory approval, and co-ordinating the initiation, management and completion of the research
• managing a team.

Celebrating clinical research nursing and its vital role in health care

29 April 2021, London

COVID-19 and clinical research nurses

The current pandemic has raised the awareness of clinical research and the impact it has on identifying effective treatments to treat this recently emerging virus. From the outset, clinical research has been a key part of the government's response and the plan to contain, delay, research and mitigate. Clinical research nurses (CRNs) have been key to the effective delivery of many of the COVID-19 interventional and observational studies now running or completed. In order to focus recruitment on key treatment studies, trusts have been encouraged to prioritise studies approved by the UK's four Chief Medical Officers (CMO) and running within the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Clinical Research Network.

The following articles provide further information on the work of CRNs during the current pandemic.

• Iles-Smith H et al on behalf of the Association of UK Lead Research Nurses (2020) How research nurses and midwives are supporting COVID-19 clinical trials . Nursing Times [online]; 116: 11, 20-22.
• Jones H et al (2020) Clinical research nurses and midwives - a key workforce in the coronavirus pandemic . Nursing Times [online]; 30 Apr 2020.

Clinical research and the NIHR

The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) funds health and care research and provides the people, facilities, and technology that enables research to thrive.

The NIHR invests significantly in people, centres of excellence, collaborations, services and facilities to support health and care research in England. Collectively these form the NIHR infrastructure, which can support you to:

• find collaboration opportunities
• access methodology advice
• access facilities for early stage research
• run your study
• access data, patient cohorts or sample support

Collaborations, services and support for your research

Are you a nurse, midwife or allied health professional (AHP) practicing in the NHS? Do you have views about how research is delivered by Clinical Research Nurses in the NHS? Would you be prepared to share those views?

The Represent-CRN study is part of the Royal College of Nursing Strategic Research Alliance with the University of Sheffield. It aims to explore the views of registered NHS staff operating outside of clinical research delivery teams, in relation to the Clinical Research Nurse role and research delivery.

By exploring these views, we hope to shed light on what leads to different perceptions of research, ultimately to enable more patients to have the opportunity to participate in research that is relevant to their health.    Find out more about the study .

Looking for a career in clinical research?

If you work in the NHS, most Trusts have R&D departments, who will put you in touch with the lead clinical research nurse: there may be opportunities to shadow, or do short-term work placements.

• National directory of NHS research offices

Research nursing across the UK

National Institute for Health Research

• The role of the clinical research nurse

Health and Social Care R&D Division

• HSC Trust research offices
• Northern Ireland Clinical Trials Unit
• Cross-border Healthcare Intervention Trials in Ireland Network (CHITIN)

Chief Scientist Office

• NHS Research Scotland (NRS)

Scottish Research Nurse and Co-ordinators Network

Health and Care Research Wales

• Clinical Trials Units

Organisational research structures and strategies

Publications which may help organisations to develop their own research infrastructure.

• Whitehouse, CL. And Smith, HA. (2018) The Whitehouse Report: Review of research nursing and midwifery structures, strategies and sharing of learning across the UK and Ireland in 2017. The Florence Nightingale Foundation .
• Jones, HC. (2017) Exploring the experience of Clinical Research Nurses working within acute NHS trusts and determining the most effective way to structure the workforce: A mixed methods study .

Further reading

A selection of articles about research nursing.

• Tinkler L. Smith V. Tuannakou Y and Robinson L. (2017) Professional Identity and the clinical research nurse: A qualitative study exploring issues having an impact on participant recruitment in research . Journal of Advanced Nursing
• Jones H.C. (2015) Clinical research nurse or nurse researcher? Nursing Times. 111(19) 12-14
• Hamer S. (2015) The nurse's changing role in clinical research . Nursing Times. 111(39) 12-14
• Gleason K (2013) What is a Research Nurse and what do they do? Clinfield Blog

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JCU Online Blog

What is the importance of research in nursing.

The future for Australian nurses is rich with opportunity, with demand for skilled professionals running high and projected to increase.

According to the Australian Government’s Nursing Supply and Demand Study , an additional 80,000 nurses will be needed by 2035. As healthcare evolves, research is an important and often overlooked tool for nurses who want to make a lasting impact on patient care and improve the future of nursing .

Research in nursing isn’t just about academic inquiry; it directly improves the quality of care, informs healthcare policies and enhances clinical practices. The ability to understand and conduct research in the realm of healthcare empowers nurses to step into leadership roles and drive meaningful, transformative change across the industry.

In this article, we’ll explore the importance of research in nursing and outline its practical applications. We’ll also discuss how developing research skills can help nurses differentiate their careers and influence transformation in a healthcare system that needs it.

What is research in nursing?

Research in nursing refers to the systemic investigation of clinical practices, patient care, and healthcare outcomes to inform practice. It involves developing hypotheses, gathering evidence, synthesising and analysing qualitative and quantitative data, and applying the findings to improve individual patient care and broader healthcare policies.

Research can be applied in various ways across different nursing roles . An intensive care unit (ICU) nurse might conduct research on the effectiveness of different pain management strategies for critical patients, and a nurse manager in a surgical ward may use research practices to investigate infection control measures.

Crucially, research allows nurses to move beyond anecdotal experience and apply scientifically supported methods in their practice to improve care and overall patient outcomes. As leadership in nursing becomes increasingly important and data-led, the role of research in this sector stands to gain even more value.

Research is critical in nursing for a number of key reasons. It underpins the continuous improvement of patient care, supports nurses in staying up-to-date with new healthcare developments, and enables them to make informed and effective decisions in their practice.

Below are reasons why research in nursing is important. 

Shape and improve care practices

As patient expectations rise and healthcare delivery becomes more complex, research empowers nurses to meet demand with evidence-backed solutions. Best practices in patient care are heavily informed by research.

By conducting and applying qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, nurses can identify the most effective treatment methods, improve patient recovery rates and refine care processes. Clinical research, for example, has been instrumental in areas like pain management, infection control and patient safety — enabling nurses to provide care based on proven outcomes, rather than relying on intuition alone.

Stay up to date with emerging trends

Advancements in tech have been outpacing most industries for decades, and healthcare is no exception. With the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and other cutting-edge technologies, the pace of change continues to be rapid. Nursing has the potential to benefit enormously from these innovations, but skilled professionals are needed to guide their proper integration.

Emerging trends extend beyond technology. Shifts in management expectations, evolving employee needs and advancements in nursing knowledge all play a role in shaping modern healthcare. Research is essential for nurses to stay ahead of these changes and remain informed about new treatments, care strategies and patient management techniques.

Whether it’s integrating digital health technologies or adopting innovative care models, strong research skills enable nurses to critically evaluate new trends and incorporate them effectively into their practice. This adaptability is crucial as healthcare becomes more reliant on data and technology.

Improved critical thinking and decision-making

Research sharpens a nurse’s ability to think critically and make informed decisions. Whether in roles across medical, clinical or management settings, decisions in healthcare often need to be made quickly. Having a strong understanding of research methods allows nurses to assess the available evidence and make the best possible choice for their patients.

This enhanced and data-driven decision-making is critical for providing high-quality care to patients, particularly in high-pressure or emergency situations.

For nurses pursuing leadership or advanced practice career paths , the ability to analyse data, synthesise evidence and apply research findings is important. Subjects like JCU Online’s Synthesising Evidence for Healthcare in the Master of Nursing degree provide nurses with the tools to critically appraise research and make evidence-based decisions that improve patient outcomes. 

Applicable to a range of nursing roles

Research skills can open doors to a wide range of career paths for nurses. They may pursue roles in areas such as academia, clinical research, healthcare administration or leadership.

For those aiming to take on leadership roles, research provides the foundation for making informed decisions that impact practice. Likewise, nurses with an interest in teaching can use their research knowledge to contribute to the education and training of future nurses, helping to shape the next generation of healthcare professionals.

JCU Online’s Master of Nursing offers three in-demand specialisations: Leadership and Management, Advanced Practice, and Education. Each major allows nurses to cultivate research expertise, equipping them to step into senior roles where they can influence healthcare policies and practices. 

How can nurses build their research skills?

Cultivating strong research skills is one of the best ways future-focused nurses can establish a competitive advantage in the industry and equip themselves to help shape it. 

There are a number of practical ways nurses can develop these skills, including:

• Engage in evidence-based practice: Review and integrate the latest nursing research wherever possible in day-to-day work. This helps to stay current and understand how evidence-based practices are applied in clinical settings. Reading journals and case studies is also a great way for nurses to familiarise and recognise high-quality research and how it can inform patient care.
• Pursue formal education: Enrolling a postgraduate degree like JCU Online’s Master of Nursing is an effective way to hone the type of research skills that will set you apart. Core subjects like Qualitative Research in Healthcare and Quantitative Research in Healthcare equip students with the skills to conduct evidence-based research, from formulating questions to developing hypotheses, interpreting data, evaluating results and integrating learnings in a practical setting.
• Participate in clinical research projects: Many healthcare organisations encourage staff to participate in research projects. Getting involved provides hands-on experience in designing studies, collecting data and evaluating outcomes – all of which are invaluable skills for nurses interested in advancing their careers.
• Collaborate with research teams: Working with interdisciplinary research teams can broaden your perspective as a nurse and deepen your understanding of healthcare challenges. It also provides the opportunity to contribute to larger-scale studies, and learn from more experienced researchers to further develop your own expertise. 

Take your nursing career to the next level

With the increasing complexity and rapid evolution of healthcare, the need for nurses with strong research skills is increasing, too.

Ranked among the top 25 universities in Australia, JCU Online offers students the opportunity to gain a highly regarded qualification while connecting with industry leaders, experienced nurse academics and specialists. 

JCU Online’s Master of Nursing gives you the qualifications and skills you need to evolve your career as fast as healthcare itself is changing. The course - delivered 100% online with personalised support - will allow you to take on more complex roles and deliver better patient care.

As a student of the Master of Nursing, you will benefit from the course content informed by the latest approaches to high-quality, innovative and cost-effective nurse leadership and care, supported by our strong partnerships with hospitals and healthcare providers throughout Australia. 

Find out how JCU Online's Master of Nursing can help create a rewarding career pathway and stay ahead. Speak to one of our Student Enrolment Advisors today on 1300 535 919.

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Research roles for nurses and midwives

There are many exciting career options in research for nurses and midwives which will help improve practice and how we care for people.

Below is an overview of the main research roles for nurses and midwives.

On this page:

Clinical nurses and midwives, research nurses and midwives, clinician researchers, hybrid or joint roles, research advanced clinical practitioners, clinical academics and academics, more information.

Nurses and midwives who are working in health and care settings can support research in a number of ways. Examples include:

• identifying people for specific research studies
• supporting investigations
• ensuring adherence to protocols, people's safety, and data collection
• undertaking a research-related role to enable delivery of a study
• becoming a co-applicant at the design phase of a research study (expert by practice)
• working as a Principal Investigator ensuring delivery of a study at site

Find out more on NIHR Learn:

Research Practice in Clinical Studies on NIHR Learn

Health and Care Research Engagement Toolkit

Find out about  NIHR Learn and how to register

Research nurses and midwives actively participate in research projects. They collaborate with research teams to ensure studies are conducted ethically and effectively.

You can become a research nurse or midwife as part of a research delivery team. The video below explains what research nurses do:

Responsibilities include:

• inviting people to join research studies
• caring for participants
• carrying out study procedures
• developing new treatments or procedures based on research findings

They also work to embed research findings to improve every day working practice.

Case studies

Why i love being a research nurse - angie's story.

Angie who works at Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust talks about what she loves about being a research nurse and why research is a rewarding career:

Researching the future of midwifery - Emma's story

Emma is a Research Midwife at St Richards Hospital in Chichester. In this case study, she talks about her journey into this unique and expanding area of clinical research:

Case study: Researching the future of midwifery

Andrea's story

Andrea is a midwife at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. She worked as a clinical midwife for then years before becoming a research midwife and shares the story of her career:

Case study: "I worked as a clinical midwife for ten years before becoming a research midwife"

Becoming a Clinical Research Nurse - Rashid's story

Rashid Almasarwah is a Clinical Research Nurse in the renal department at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. He has worked in nursing for over 35 years. In this case study, he shares the story of his career in research:

Case study: Rashid Almasarwah

Common Research Nurse Roles And Responsibilities  - article published on nurses.co.uk in March 2023

Clinical research nursing - Royal College of Nursing website

Clinician researchers integrate research into their jobs. They contribute significantly to advancing knowledge, improving care, and driving innovations in health and care.

• promoting research to people in their care, service users and colleagues
• conducting other people’s research
• designing and leading their own research

Samantha’s story: taking the MClinRes while working as a midwife

Postgraduate courses on leading clinical research delivery

The NIHR and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AoMRC) have worked with Higher Education Institutions to develop a national framework of Master’s level qualifications.

These qualifications are made up of a combination of online modules and practical experience, providing healthcare practitioners from any regulated profession with the skills, networks and confidence to lead and support clinical research delivery.

Clinician Researcher Credentials Framework

Hybrid or joint roles offer nurses and midwives opportunities to combine clinical practice with research.

Placing research and evidence-based practice at the centre benefits everyone.  

Opportunities are becoming more common, with many organisations introducing innovative roles or research internships.

Using joint roles to maximise research opportunities for patients and staff - Nursing Times article from 8 August 2023

Hybrid role combines critical care and research - NHS Northern Care Alliance case study

Research Advanced Clinical Practitioners (ACPs) are healthcare professionals, educated to Master’s level or equivalent. They combine knowledge of clinical research delivery and advanced clinical practice.

They can carry out certain tasks that would have been carried out by a doctor in the past. Examples include:

• determining eligibility of participants on certain clinical trials
• prescribing treatments
• undertaking clinical reviews

Multi-professional framework for advanced clinical practice in England - NHS Health Education England

Clinical academics engage in research while continuing with their clinical careers. 

Academics may not have a clinical role and focus more on the acquisition of new knowledge related to the progression of practice.

Both roles focus on improving healthcare by leading research and supporting a research-rich environment.

They focus on specific areas of interest, publish scholarly articles, and mentor future healthcare professionals.

They are usually based within a health or social care organisation and/or a university.

How to become a clinical academic?

Watch this guide to starting out in clinical academic research. It's a series of 10 short videos to help you navigate the complexities of becoming a clinical academic:

A guide to starting out in clinical academic research

Imogen Skene is a Senior Clinical Research Nurse at Bart’s Health NHS trust. She explains what inspired her to get involved in research and how she has been able to combine a nursing career, which she loves, and develop her interest in clinical research and help to identify best practice:

We offer an academic programme to become a clinical academic.  Find out more:

Integrated Clinical and Practitioner (ICA) Programme

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The use of bibliometrics in nursing science: Topics, data sources and contributions to research and practice

Belén mezquita.

1 Departament de Ciències Bàsiques, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Sant Cugat del Vallès Spain

Cristina Alfonso‐Arias

2 Departament d'Infermeria, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Sant Cugat del Vallès Spain

Patricia Martínez‐Jaimez

Ángel borrego.

3 Facultat d'Informació i Mitjans Audiovisuals, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona Spain

Associated Data

The 129 articles analysed are listed in the Annex. They are referred to throughout the article by means of numbers in brackets. In addition, the data resulting from this research are freely available in comma‐separated values (CSV) format (Borrego & Mezquita,  2023 ). For each article, the dataset includes the topic of the study, the data source employed to gather the literature, the time frame, the number of records considered, and whether the article analysed 14 variables.

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7928599 .

To describe the use of bibliometrics in nursing and assess their contribution to research and practice.

A content analysis was conducted of topics, data sources and applications of bibliometrics in nursing research articles.

The study universe included 129 bibliometric articles on nursing retrieved from Scopus. A content analysis was performed to identify the purposes and topics of the articles, the sources employed to collect the data, the time frames covered, the amounts of records surveyed, and the features of the nursing literature analysed in bibliometric papers.

Nursing bibliometric research revolves around six key areas: global descriptions of the nursing literature, literature on specific nursing research topics, nursing education, nursing profession, nursing research using a certain framework or method, and nursing literature published in a country or region. Studies rely on three types of sources to retrieve the surveyed literature: bibliographic databases, sets of disciplinary journals and samples of documents. Bibliometrics can be employed to advance nursing research (identification of research gaps, establishment of research agendas, assessment of methodological approaches, etc.) and practice (identification of professional competences, categorisation of professional tasks, recognition of educational improvements, etc.), suggesting new avenues for researchers who aim to conduct further bibliometric research in the field. Further research is needed to assess the coverage of the nursing literature by new bibliographic data sources and to explore unaddressed topics such as gender imbalance in authorship.

1. INTRODUCTION

Bibliometrics consists of the quantitative analysis of scholarly publications. It can be used to track the growth of a particular area of research over time and to analyse literature features such as authorship, collaboration patterns or identification of core journals in a discipline. Bibliometric analysis is often used to assess the research output of individuals, institutions and countries based on citation analysis. In addition, bibliometric studies can be useful to unveil research gaps in a field, pinpoint conflicting findings, disclose underexplored areas or reveal research biases such as the presence of overrepresented or underrepresented populations. Overall, bibliometric studies provide valuable insights into the patterns and trends of scholarly communication and research, and can be used to inform research policy, funding decisions and strategic planning (Thompson & Walker,  2015 ).

Cant et al. ( 2022 ) recently described bibliometrics as “an emerging science in nursing.” However, the use of bibliometrics to describe and assess the nursing literature has bloomed over the past two decades. Within this context, it is crucial to perform empirical assessments of the use of bibliometrics in nursing to identify how bibliometrics can improve our understanding of the field and to provide a solid foundation for researchers who wish to conduct further bibliometric studies in the discipline.

The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it describes and assess the use of bibliometrics in nursing research literature. The purpose is to ascertain how bibliometric studies contribute to advance theory and practice in nursing research, identifying the purposes and topics of bibliometric articles in nursing, the sources employed to collect the data, the time frames covered, the amounts of records surveyed, and the features of the nursing literature analysed in bibliometric papers. Second, it offers guidelines to help nursing scholars to conduct bibliometric studies in the field by using the appropriate techniques in each instance according to their purpose. In short, we aim to help researchers understand bibliometrics and its usefulness to improve our understanding of nursing science and how to use bibliometric techniques meaningfully and rigorously in the discipline.

1.1. Background

Bibliometrics aims to describe and map the scientific knowledge in a discipline by making sense of large volumes of bibliographic data. It can be useful to obtain an overview of a discipline, identify knowledge gaps and derive novel ideas for investigation (Donthu et al.,  2021 , p. 285). Bibliometrics encompass two categories of analysis: performance analysis and science mapping. The first examines the participation of research contributors (authors, institutions, journals, etc.) to a field, including publication and citation analysis. Science mapping focuses on the relationships between research contributors making use of techniques such as co‐authorship, co‐citations or co‐word analysis. The combination of both approaches is useful to describe the intellectual structure of a research field (Mukherjee et al.,  2022 ).

In contrast to systematic reviews and meta‐analysis, bibliometric studies summarize the intellectual structure of a field by analysing the relationships between different research contributors. Rather than narrative synthesis of the content of individual articles based on manual analyses, bibliometric reviews provide quantitative measures and visualizations of large samples of papers that provide insights into the structure and evolution of the scholarly literature within a particular field.

The increasing interest in bibliometric studies within the health sciences has prompted the development of two recent sets of guidelines aimed at enhancing the reporting quality of such studies. Koo and Lin ( 2023 ) introduced the Preferred Reporting Items for Bibliometric Analysis (PRIBA) guidelines, comprising 25 items adapted from the PRISMA framework. Through an evaluation against the top 100 bibliometric studies in health and medicine from 2019 to 2021, these guidelines underscored the pressing need for improved reporting standards in bibliometric research. In parallel, Montazeri et al. ( 2023 ) formulated the Guideline for Reporting Bibliometric Reviews of the Biomedical Literature (BIBLIO), encompassing 20 items derived from a literature review and consensus among a panel of experts.

Few studies have discussed so far the usefulness of bibliometrics to improve our understanding of nursing science. In one of the first conceptual papers on the topic, Smith and Hazelton ( 2008 ) provided an overview of citation‐based research in nursing to map the core journals in the field and assess nursing research. Subsequently, Smith and Hazelton ( 2011 ) stressed their support for the use of bibliometrics and suggested that it should be included in nursing curricula. Later, Smith and Watson ( 2016 ) stated that bibliometric competencies should be expanded to altmetrics and social media.

Using a hands‐on approach, Alfonzo et al. ( 2014 ) outlined the basics of bibliometrics, the main steps in conducting a bibliometric study, features of bibliometric software and an example of applications with a small corpus in nursing research. In a similar fashion, Davidson et al. ( 2014 ) summarized the strengths and limitations of bibliometrics for mapping and assessing research performance in nursing, including webometric indicators such as the number of downloads or Twitter mentions.

Kokol and Vošner ( 2018 ) conducted the most extensive analysis of the application of bibliometrics in nursing to date. They analysed the historical roots of bibliometrics in nursing, the most productive countries, institutions and journals, and the most prolific themes in the application of bibliometrics in nursing. Their results showed a positive trend in literature production spread through all continents. Thematic analysis showed that applications of bibliometrics in nursing included descriptive analysis, research evaluation, content analysis, citation analysis and trend analysis.

In this study, we aim to provide additional insights of how bibliometrics is being used in nursing research. The purpose is to describe and assess the current state of bibliometrics in the field and to provide a solid basis for researchers who aim to conduct further bibliometric research in the discipline. The study is underpinned by the following research questions:

• What are the topics of nursing bibliometric studies?
• Which data sources, time frames and document populations are employed in nursing bibliometric research?
• What bibliometric approaches are used to analyse nursing science?
• What are the contributions of bibliometric studies to advance theory and practice in nursing research?

2.1. Design

A content analysis of nursing bibliometric papers was conducted to identify the purposes and topics of the studies, the sources employed to gather the data, and the features of the literature analysed in the papers.

2.2. Data collection

On 10 February 2023, we retrieved from Scopus the articles published up to 2022 that included the terms “bibliomet*” and “nurs*” in the title of the document. The search was not limited by document type, language or any other criteria.

We retrieved 143 records. Since the purpose of the study was to analyse the practical applications of bibliometrics in nursing, five conceptual papers on the topic were removed from the analysis. Nine additional papers were removed because: (a) they were in Chinese (four records) or German (one record), languages that we do not understand; (b) they were not available online in full text (three records); or (c) they did not offer original data, but a comment on another bibliometric study that was already included in the sample (one record). In the end, 129 articles were analysed.

2.3. Data analysis

The full text of the 129 articles was downloaded. Each article was screened to collect information on the aim of the study, the data sources employed and the analysis conducted.

The articles had been published over the course of two decades, from 2001 to 2022, with a clear growing trend: 64 articles (50%) had been published in the last 3 years considered, from 2020 to 2022. The articles had been published in 62 journals, although five sources concentrated 29% of the literature, each publishing more than five nursing bibliometric studies: Journal of Advanced Nursing (12 articles), International Journal of Nursing Practice (7), Journal of Nursing Management (7), Journal of Nursing Scholarship (6) and Texto e Contexto Enfermagem (6).

2.4. Data availability

3.1. topics of nursing bibliometric research.

Nursing bibliometric research can be broadly classified into six categories (Figure  1 ). First, 26 studies (20%) aimed to describe the global landscape of nursing scholarly literature. Second, 41 studies (32%) took a narrower approach to focus on the literature on a specific nursing research topic. Third, 23 studies (18%) analysed the literature on nursing education and training. Fourth, 20 studies (16%) explored the literature on the nursing profession, i.e., the workforce, workplace and working conditions. Fifth, 7 studies (5%) dealt with the features of nursing research that used a certain theoretical framework or research method. Finally, 12 studies (9%) analysed the nursing scholarly output published in a particular country or region. Some of the studies classified in the first five categories also had a geographic focus (e.g. a bibliometric analysis of the literature on a nursing topic published in a particular country). For the purposes of this paper, we classified these articles in the first five categories rather than in the sixth.

Topics of nursing bibliometric research.

3.1.1. Bibliometric studies on global nursing literature

The studies that took a broader approach aimed to provide an overview of nursing scholarly literature published in a certain time frame. For instance, Wang et al. [109] performed a global assessment of nursing research indexed in the Web of Science from 2009 to 2020. The results showed a positive publication trend of nursing papers, although restrained by low research funding, regionally centred research activity and limited international collaboration in developing regions.

Instead of searching a database to retrieve the literature in the field, some nursing bibliometric studies focused on the outputs published in a set of disciplinary journals. For example, Giménez‐Espert and Prado‐Gascó [39] analysed the outputs published between 2012 and 2017 in the six most reputable nursing journals according to their impact factor. Their results allowed an assessment of the state of nursing research by revealing the most popular authors, institutions and topics.

Alternatively, some studies focused on the bibliometric indicators of disciplinary journals. Thus, Smith [97] performed a longitudinal analysis of the evolution between 1977 and 2008 of seven nursing journals, especially their impact factors, which showed a sustained increase in the number of citations received. Similarly, Avena and Barbosa [5] compared bibliometric indicators provided by six databases for a set of seven Brazilian and seven international nursing journals between 2012 and 2014.

Finally, several case studies focused on particular nursing journals. The literature included studies on the Brazilian nursing journal Referência [88], the Journal of Advanced Nursing [121], the International Journal of Nursing Studies [50], The Canadian Nurse [71], the Philippine Journal of Nursing [106], the Journal for Nurse Practitioners [108] and the Journal of Nursing Management [118].

3.1.2. Bibliometric studies on specific nursing research topics

Most nursing bibliometric studies analysed the literature on a particular issue. The range of nursing research topics explored included artificial intelligence in nursing [94], cardiovascular nursing [15], cirrhosis nursing [42], COVID‐19 nursing [22; 84; 123], disaster nursing [76; 125], family nursing [46], genomic nursing [113], geriatric and gerontologic nursing [38; 79], HIV/AIDS nursing [29], intensive and coronary care nursing [67], mental health nursing [61], military nursing [25], multiple sclerosis nursing [119], nursing and ageing [90], nursing caregiving [33], oncologic nursing [124] and palliative care nursing [37].

In addition to bibliometric studies designed to quantify the literature on a particular topic, some studies employed bibliometrics to explore other features of the nursing literature. This suggests that there are additional applications of bibliometrics in nursing. Some bibliometric studies described the literature on research utilization in nursing [35; 93]. Another study used bibliometrics to measure the use in the literature of five nursing terminology sets [4]. Yet another approach consisted of exploring the comprehensiveness of systematic reviews in four guidelines for preventing in‐patient falls by comparing their references lists with all the available literature [21].

3.1.3. Bibliometric studies on nursing education and training

Papers classified in this category revolved around two main issues: nurses' competences and training strategies to improve nurses' education. Blažun Vošner, Kokol and Vošner [14] analysed the nursing competences research literature indexed in Scopus between 1981 and 2012. Su, Hwang and Chang [99] analysed nursing core competencies research indexed in the Web of Science between 1997 and 2022. Specific studies focused on the literature on certain competences of nurses, such as clinical reasoning [44], informatics [13; 57; 58; 62; 64; 65] and leadership [53; 81].

Regarding bibliometric studies on training strategies, some papers focused on the use of expressions of art in nursing education and care [36], robots [91], simulation [17; 111] or virtual simulation [18; 122].

3.1.4. Bibliometric studies on the nursing profession

Another topic of interest for nursing bibliometric research was literature on the workforce of nurses, the workplace and working conditions. Focusing on nursing professional practice, we found bibliometric studies on nursing advocacy [10], dignity care [66], patient satisfaction [100], nurse residency programmes [31], nurse rounding [49] or the use of robots to assist nursing care [19].

Other bibliometric studies focused on nurses' working conditions. They explored literature on the burnout syndrome among nurses [28; 32; 72], conflicts in nursing [53], job insecurity [89], nursing as a career [12], nurses' turnover [70], nurses' wellbeing [51], workplace bullying [68] and workplace incivility [103].

3.1.5. Bibliometric studies on nursing literature using a particular framework or research method

Some bibliometric papers focused on nursing literature that used a particular theoretical framework, research methodology or data collection technique. This category included bibliometric papers on nursing studies using action research [74], grounded theory [60], phenomenological approaches [75], qualitative methods [8; 77] and social representation theory [26].

3.1.6. Bibliometric studies on nursing literature in a geographic area

Finally, some bibliometric studies focused on the nursing literature published in a particular country or region. There were studies on nursing research in the Arab region [27], Australia [112], China [86], Colombia [16; 41], Spain [85], Taiwan [47] and Turkey [34]. Although most of these papers used a case study approach, which focused on the literature published in a single country, one study [104] compared nursing research published in six mainly English‐speaking nations (Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States). Another international study [59] correlated nursing literature production with country and health determinants, including life expectancy, gross domestic product, human development factor and gross national income.

3.2. Data sources in nursing bibliometric research

Nursing bibliometric studies relied on three types of sources to retrieve the surveyed literature. First, 95 studies (74%) analysed the literature retrieved through one or several bibliographic databases. Second, 21 studies (16%) focused on articles published in a set of disciplinary journals. Third, 13 studies (10%) surveyed documents that shared a particular feature, such as having been selected by a group of experts or being a particular type of document, usually a dissertation or theses.

The three approaches were not mutually exclusive. Thus, a study analysing the literature published in a set of journals could rely on a bibliographic database to retrieve the records employed in the analysis. For the purposes of this paper, we classified these articles as being based on a set of journals rather than on a database.

3.2.1. Literature retrieved from bibliographic databases

The most common approach to data collection in nursing bibliometric studies was to retrieve the literature from one or several databases. Up to 39 sources were mentioned in the articles, with several studies combining two or more sources. The databases employed most frequently were the Web of Science (49 articles), Scopus (23), MEDLINE/PubMed (23) and the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL; 11).

In addition to their prestige, the preference for Web of Science and Scopus is explained by the fact that they are citation indexes, i.e., they list the references cited in the articles that they cover. This allows data to be obtained on the references cited by an article and the citations it receives. These data are not available for other databases, which prevents citation analysis, unless data from several sources is compiled. For instance, in a bibliometric study on robotics in nursing, Carter‐Templeton et al. [19] used CINAHL to identify the literature. Afterwards, citation counts were collected via Google Scholar, Scopus and the Web of Science. Similarly, in their article on distinct nursing research, Nicoll et al. [82] asked journal editors to identify relevant articles and the author then collected citations to these articles from Scopus.

The combination of several databases in a single study allows researchers to assess their comprehensiveness. For instance, Scott et al. [93] concluded that, at the time of their analysis, CINAHL was more comprehensive than either MEDLINE or the Web of Science in covering references in the knowledge utilization field in nursing.

Since most nursing bibliometric studies focused on publications on a certain topic, the most usual approach to retrieve the literature was keyword searching. Nevertheless, other search strategies were applied when relevant. Thus, Huang, Ho and Chuang [47] searched the Web of Science for nursing papers published by authors based in Taiwan to analyse the scholarly literature published in the country.

Finally, some authors focused on the most cited articles according to a citation index. This was the case of bibliometric studies of the top 10% of cited papers in nursing published between 2008 and 2018 [129], or the 100 most cited articles on nursing student education published between 2000 and 2020 [20]. Both studies relied on citation metrics provided by the Web of Science.

Some studies relied exclusively on databases that provide bibliometric indicators. Thus, Smith [97] used the Journal Citation Reports to conduct a longitudinal analysis between 1977 and 2008 of impact factor trends among seven core journals in nursing. Santiago and Carlantonio [92] and Singh and Pandita [96] used bibliometric indicators provided by the Scimago Journal and Country Rank to measure nursing research output in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and worldwide, respectively. These databases provide information on the number of articles published and citations received by journals in a field but fail to include any information on individual articles.

3.2.2. Literature published in a set of journals

Instead of retrieving records from literature databases, another option used in nursing bibliometric research was to analyse the articles published in a set of journals selected for their thematic orientation, their geographic origin or their citation impact. When the population of articles was large, some kind of sampling was applied. For instance, in their analysis of Australian nursing research between 1985 and 2010, Wiles, Olds and Williams [112] consistently sampled seven journals at 3‐month intervals every 5 years from the first year of publication to 2010.

Journals and databases can be combined to improve the comprehensiveness of data gathering. Thus, in their analysis of the United Kingdom nursing literature, Traynor et al. [105] initially identified all United Kingdom papers published in 23 nursing journals. These articles were supplemented with papers published in other “general” journals retrieved through a database, if they had one or more of a set of title keywords.

3.2.3. Sets of documents

Some nursing bibliometric studies analysed samples of articles selected according to various criteria. This approach was employed, for instance, in two citation analyses of “distinct” nursing literature [82; 83] that required journal editors to submit articles from their journals representing “distinction” in nursing research, education or practice. Other nursing bibliometric studies focused on particular document types, such as theses and dissertations [95] or nursing guidelines [21].

In terms of time frames, on average, each bibliometric study covered 20.9 years (median = 17 years). Although some bibliometric studies went further back in time, most research was concentrated in the period between 2001 and 2015, with numerous studies taking the year 2000 as the starting point for their analysis.

In terms of size of the populations under study, the biggest samples were those of bibliometric studies based on sets of journals (average = 1693 records, median = 825), followed by studies based on bibliographic databases (average = 1329, median = 433) and those based on sets of documents (average = 159, median = 108). The smaller size of samples in studies based on literature searches is explained by the presence of studies that focused on specific research topics, with little scholarly output. Studies based on sets of documents frequently focused on a relatively small number of theses and dissertations.

3.3. Types of analysis in nursing bibliometric studies

This section focuses on the features of the literature analysed in nursing bibliometric studies. Twelve variables were analysed in the articles surveyed, which revealed different applications of bibliometrics to study nursing science (Figure  2 ).

Types of analyses in nursing bibliometric research.

3.3.1. Years of publication

The most common variable analysed in nursing bibliometric research was the year of publication of the surveyed documents. Most bibliometric studies (96 studies, 74%) included a longitudinal analysis of trends in knowledge production. Although the analysis was usually limited to counting the number of articles published per year, similar analyses can be applied to other variables. For instance, a case study of the Journal of Advanced Nursing [121] discussed the annual trends in number of authors, pages, institutions, references and citations per article.

Most studies revealed an upward trend in the volume of published articles, often interpreted as indicative of growing interest in the subject matter. While such a rise may indeed signify heightened interest, the proliferation of published articles may also be influenced by the expansion of databases used for data collection. The continual enlargement of journals indexed in Scopus and Web of Science contributes to an augmented retrieval of scholarly outputs across various topics.

3.3.2. Document types

As discussed above, most nursing bibliometric studies relied on bibliographic databases to retrieve the literature. These databases mostly index scholarly journals, including different types of documents: articles, editorials, letters, reviews, etc. The classification of documents according to these categories was presented in some nursing bibliometric studies (25 studies, 19%). The analysis of document types can be combined with other variables of interest. For example, Anderson, Keenan and Jones [4] analysed to what extent five nursing terminology sets were used in different document types. Nevertheless, it is important to note that such analyses are often constrained by the database's coverage, which tends to prioritize the indexing of journal articles over other document types. This limitation may impact the comprehensiveness and scope of the analysis.

3.3.3. Language of documents

As in the case of document types, this kind of analysis (11 studies, 9%) relied on the information provided by bibliographic databases. When conducting analyses of languages within the literature, it is crucial to consider that biases inherent in the database's coverage can significantly influence the outcomes. Put simply, the proportion of nursing literature available in various languages as retrieved from databases like Scopus and the Web of Science is contingent upon the language coverage provided by the database itself. Therefore, it may not accurately reflect the entirety of scholarly output in the field.

3.3.4. Authorship

In the analysis of authorship (48 studies, 37%), the most frequent output delivered by nursing bibliometric papers was a list of the most prolific authors. Nevertheless, some studies [e.g., 2; 3; 35; 72] went one step further to analyse whether the distribution of authors followed Lotka's law of productivity. This law describes the frequency of publication by authors in any given field. It states that the number of authors publishing n papers is 1/n 2 of those publishing one paper (Pao,  1985 ).

3.3.5. Affiliations

The analysis of the affiliations of the authors of the literature allowed identification of the most productive institutions (64 studies, 50%) and the most productive countries (69 studies, 53%). In some instances, this analysis became the focus of the study. Thus, Kokol et al. [59] explored the relationship between nursing research literature production and country and health determinants. They concluded that gross domestic product, human development factor, and gross national income were related to nursing research literature productivity.

In addition to institutional affiliations, some nursing bibliometric studies analysed the education background of the authors who contributed to the literature. Thus, Ravelli et al. [90] analysed the training (e.g., nurses, doctors, pharmacists, odontologists, psychologists, etc.) of the authors of Latin‐American literature on nursing and ageing published between 2003 and 2008. In a similar fashion, Marcellus [71] analysed the longitudinal evolution of the presence of nurses, physicians and other health professionals among the authors in The Canadian Nurse .

3.3.6. Collaboration

Research collaboration was explored through the analysis of co‐authorship (39 studies, 30%). The analysis can be purely numerical, i.e., calculating the average number of authors per paper, or can be aimed at identifying the networks of researchers, institutions and countries that publish jointly. For instance, Alcalá‐Albert and Parra‐González [3] built a network of co‐authors who frequently published together in the nursing outputs indexed until 2021 in the Web of Science, whereas Zhu et al. [129] built a network of co‐author institutions in their analysis of the top cited papers in nursing between 2008 and 2018.

In most studies, full counting was used for handling publications with multiple coauthors. However, proper field normalization requires fractional counting (Waltman & van Eck,  2015 ). These two approaches yield different results in co‐authorship networks and journal coupling networks, with fractional counting being preferable over full counting (Perianes‐Rodriguez et al.,  2016 ).

3.3.7. Journals

The core journals in the field can be identified through an analysis of journals that publish nursing literature. This type of analysis was present in 69 studies (53%). Beyond a list of journals sorted by the number of articles published, some researchers [e.g., 3; 35; 67; 68; 79] explored whether journals in their analyses followed Bradford's law of scattering. This law states that, if journals in a field are sorted by number of articles, they can be divided into a nucleus of journals that are more specifically devoted to the subject and several groups containing the same number of articles as the nucleus, when the number of journals in the nucleus and succeeding groups will be as 1:n:n 2 , where n is a multiplier (Desai et al.,  2018 ). However, it is essential to consider that different operationalizations of the concept of “subject” can lead to significantly different lists of core journals (Nicolaisen & Hjørland,  2007 ).

3.3.8. Research designs

Some nursing bibliometric papers (26 studies, 20%) analysed the methodological features of the articles surveyed. For example, in their longitudinal analysis of Australian nursing research, Wiles, Olds and Williams [112] verified an improvement in research designs, with an increasing use of higher research approaches and greater quantification in reporting results. Similarly, Chang et al. [20] analysed the chronological evolution in the statistical analyses employed in the top 100 most cited articles on nursing student education published between 2000 and 2020.

3.3.9. Funding

Although it was not common (14 articles, 11%), some bibliometric studies reported findings on the funding of nursing research. For example, McVicar, Munn‐Giddings and Abu‐Helil [74] analysed the funding sources of nursing literature in the UK that used action research as a methodology. Huang et al. [46] explored institutions funding family nursing research using data from Web of Science.

In this kind of studies, it is necessary to bear in mind that coverage of funding information differs significantly among Scopus, Web of Science and PubMed for the same journals (Kokol,  2023 ; Kokol & Vošner,  2018 ). Consequently, the choice of a bibliographic database could potentially introduce bias into the results. To mitigate this bias, researchers aiming to retrieve funding information related to specific research topics or institutions should consider combining data from all three databases to obtain more complete information.

3.3.10. Topics

Most nursing bibliometric studies (92 studies, 71%) aimed to identify the topics, themes and research hotspots in the literature. Three alternative methods were used for this purpose: manual classification of articles by topic, assignation of articles to the subject categories of journals in the database, and keyword analysis.

In the case of manual classification of articles, the subject categories may be built purposely by researchers, or may rely on existing classification schemes. Using the first approach, Scott et al. [93] assigned articles on research utilization in nursing to ten “domains” created by the authors. Zhang et al. [125] used the International Council of Nurses' Framework of Disaster Nursing Competencies to classify articles on the topic.

In other studies, the classification of articles by topic was not based on the direct examination of papers but on the databases' journal categories. For example, in their analysis of the literature on robots in nursing education, Romero, La Hoz and González [91] classified articles according to the subject areas employed by Scopus to classify the journals.

Finally, some authors used keyword analysis to identify the topics in the literature. Keywords were extracted from titles and abstracts or were provided by the database, such as the Medical Subject Heading in the case of PubMed. The analysis usually consisted of counting the frequency of keywords, to be depicted in word clouds, or identifying co‐occurrence networks of keywords, which were usually clustered and depicted using VOSviewer software (Van Eck & Waltman,  2010 ).

The selection of any of these approaches can significantly influence the outcomes. Journal classifications within databases may not always encapsulate the specific topics or themes explored within individual articles, particularly in multidisciplinary journals or those exploring emerging research areas. Moreover, these classification systems may lack the granularity necessary to distinguish between closely related topics and may encounter issues of inconsistencies.

Employing keywords extracted from titles and abstracts offers a more flexible and tailored method for defining topics and themes. This strategy allows for the inclusion of synonyms, related terms, and variations in spelling or terminology. Utilizing database‐provided keywords presents certain advantages in terms of consistency and comprehensiveness, given that most databases utilize controlled vocabularies and subject indexing to categorize publications. This can ensure consistency in topic identification across various studies. However, predefined keywords may not fully encompass the breadth and diversity of topics within a research area, nor do they necessarily reflect emerging or niche areas that have yet to be integrated into the database's subject indexing.

A combination of both methods may prove beneficial. By extracting keywords from titles and abstracts and cross‐referencing them with database‐provided keywords, researchers can ensure a comprehensive and consistent approach to topic identification.

3.3.11. References

References cited in papers were another feature of interest in nursing bibliometric research. Some articles focused exclusively on references cited in the literature to analyse their characteristics: years of publication, document types, languages, etc. The list of variables susceptible to be analysed in references is as long as the list of variables that can be analysed in the citing articles themselves.

The simplest analysis consisted of measuring the average number of cited references per document and whether there were any differences between, for instance, document types (e.g., whether research papers or clinical studies cite different numbers of sources). Some studies focused on references to particular types of documents. For example, Woods, Phillips and Dudash [115] analysed the references to grey literature (conference proceedings, news, theses and dissertations, etc.) in six nursing journals.

The Price index, that is, the percentage of references that are less than five years old, allowed an exploration of obsolescence of the literature [72]. In studies focusing on the literature published in a particular country, the share of references published in the same country as the surveyed articles allowed the “insularity” of the field to be measured [34; 85]. The interdisciplinarity of the discipline can also be analysed by measuring the share of nursing and non‐nursing references in the nursing literature [35]. Finally, the analysis of references cited in nursing guidelines can be a method to assess their comprehensiveness [21].

Reference Publication Year Spectroscopy (RPYS) is a bibliometric method that can be used to track the historical origins of research fields. RPYS plots the cumulative distribution of cited references of a publication set in terms of the referenced publication years. The peaks in the graph indicate specific publications which were cited frequently within the field (Marx et al.,  2014 ). This method was applied to the global nursing literature [56], cardiovascular nursing [15], nursing informatics [13] or meta‐analysis approaches used in nursing research [55].

3.3.12. Citations

As in the case of references, the citations received by an article may be analysed from multiple points of view: years of publication of citing documents, types of citing documents, citing authors, etc. Again, the simplest analysis consisted of counting the number of citations per paper. To make the analysis more meaningful, citation counts can be combined with other variables to determine, for instance, whether articles are cited more if they are written in international co‐authorship [47] or if they result from funded research [105].

A popular citation indicator at author level is the h index, which combines the productivity and citation impact of an author. The h‐index is defined as the maximum value of h such that the given author has published at least h papers that have each been cited at least h times (De Groote & Raszewski,  2012 ). Goode et al. [40] calculated the h index for nurses at the University of Colorado Hospital in their case study of the contribution of this institution to nursing scholarly literature. Similarly, Singh and Pandita [96] calculated the h index for the countries that contribute to nursing scholarly literature according to the Scimago Journal and Country Rank .

“Sleeping beauties” are publications that go unnoticed for a long time and then, almost suddenly, attract a lot of attention (Van Raan,  2004 ). Železnik, Blažun Vošner and Kokol [121] identified two sleeping beauties in their 40‐year analysis of the Journal of Advanced Nursing .

A possible way to establish associations between research agents is co‐citation, that is, when two articles, authors, journals, etc. are cited together. For instance, in their analysis of the nursing output published in six journals, Giménez‐Espert and Prado‐Gascó [39] built a network of co‐cited articles. Scott et al. [93] built a co‐citation map of the most cited authors in the field of nursing utilization to unveil the structure of the scientific community that works in the field. Guo, Lu and Tian [42] built a network of co‐cited journals in the field of cirrhosis nursing.

In their analysis of “distinct” nursing research, Nicoll et al. [82; 83] analysed three citation features of a set of articles selected by journal editors: persistence (rate of subsequent citations over time), reach (geographic distribution of subsequent citations) and dissemination (specialty of follow‐on citations represented as nursing or another discipline). In addition to persistence, read and dissemination, Waldrop, Carter‐Templeton and Nicoll [108] analysed altmetrics provided by PlumX (usage, captures, mentions and social media) in a case study of the Journal for Nurse Practitioners .

Finally, it should be noted that some of the bibliometric studies identified in this research focus on the bibliometric analysis of highly cited articles. When this approach is used, authors should consider the time lapse needed by articles to accumulate citations. The most cited articles in, say, the past 20 years are not necessarily representative of the more impactful research published in these two decades, since older articles have had more time to accrue citations and may introduce a bias in the sample. This should be acknowledged as a limitation in this kind of studies. Recent groundbreaking research might be overlooked if the analysis focuses solely on the most cited works. This can skew the understanding of current trends and developments in a field.

4. DISCUSSION

4.1. contributions of bibliometric studies to advance nursing research and practice.

Bibliometrics involves the quantitative analysis of scholarly publications. It is used to explore the features of nursing science has sharply increased in recent years. Nevertheless, bibliometrics is an umbrella term that encompasses a wide range of analyses. This study offers a detailed overview of the applications of bibliometrics in nursing research, which suggests new developments for researchers who aim to conduct further bibliometric research in the field.

Most nursing bibliometric studies combine performance analysis with science mapping to advance nursing research and practice. Most papers identify research leaders, collaboration patterns, influential journals, hot topics, research frontiers, etc. This information is useful to assess the maturity of a research topic. In some instances, limited amount of collaborative research and the repeated citation of a few references pinpoint towards the underdevelopment of research fields such as research utilization in nursing [35]. These observations are of interest to policy makers who can become aware of the need to diversify grant support to broaden the scope of nursing research in themes such as artificial intelligence [94] or in genomic nursing science [113].

The identification of research gaps and the establishment of research agendas are among the most usual contributions of bibliometric studies when applied to topics such as burnout among nursing professionals [32] or conflict in nursing [53]. Nursing bibliometric research focused on specific geographic areas can reveal the need of researchers in certain countries to investigate specific patient groups, diseases, treatments or skills for unresearched gaps with national relevance [104]. Even individual case studies focused on a single journal can reflect emerging scientific developments and evolving social values [71].

Bibliometric studies contribute to understanding the global direction of the field and specific research topics. For instance, a bibliometric study on leadership and care in nursing revealed that themes such as job satisfaction, teamwork and retention were researched more intensively whereas patient‐based and fundamental‐care themes, including patient safety, comfort, dignity or privacy were less studied [54]. Similarly, a keyword analysis of studies on workplace incivility in nursing revealed that horizontal/lateral violence and bullying were used interchangeably even though their contents and meaning are quite different [103].

Some bibliometric studies unveil different approaches to research in a certain topic. Keyword co‐occurrence analysis has proved useful to identify how different health sciences address the field of scope of practice, identifying areas where synthesis to find consolidated results may be possible [9]. Using a slightly different approach, bibliometric analysis of the literature on nursing competences allowed to identify different approaches to the topic of nursing competence in the practice‐oriented versus the educational literature [14]. In a similar fashion, bibliometric research can be useful to show the transferability potential of knowledge gained from nursing research to other health professions, as in the case of military nursing research [25].

From a methodological point of view, bibliometric studies are useful to assess the comprehensiveness of systematic reviews as illustrated by a comparative analysis of guidelines for preventing inpatient falls [21]. Low extensiveness revealed certain preferences in how the literature was selected, suggesting how to improve reviews in terms of methodological quality. Citation analysis can also be relevant to show the substantial use of grey literature and the need to apply this knowledge to instruction, research and practice [115].

Our results also illustrate how bibliometrics can improve nursing practice. Empirical evidence of correlation between literature production and well‐being and health determinants of countries can be useful to demonstrate that research is successfully translated into practice [59]. Similarly, a 20‐year bibliometric analysis of nursing research in Australia was useful to demonstrate the increased sophistication in the impact of nursing services on access to care [112].

RPSY is a viable approach to analyse the historical roots of knowledge development that can be useful to better understand current problems in the profession. For instance, it may help nurse practitioners to recognize ingrained cultural traditions and cultural bias, so they can become more culturally sensitive to people from other cultural environments [15]. In a similar fashion, a bibliometric analysis of research in the field of nursing management, religion and spirituality revealed the need that nurses are equipped to develop an understanding of the socio‐religion changes towards personal spiritual inquire and development [23].

Bibliometric methods are useful to improve our understanding of the profession, as evidenced by studies of the literature of robotics in nursing that allowed to identify and classify applications of robotics within patient care areas [19] or a proposal for a categorisation of variants of nurse rounding based on bibliometric data [49].

Bibliometric studies have revealed that nurses should be included in decision‐making policies, as illustrated by a bibliometric study on nurses as agents for achieving environmentally sustainable health systems [69].

Finally, bibliometric studies can enlighten how to improve nursing education, as exemplified by research that identified core competencies in critical thinking, complex problem solving or computation thinking [99]. Another bibliometric analysis of simulation in nursing education showed that psychiatric simulations and critical care simulation were core priorities in nursing education [111].

4.2. Methodological approaches in nursing bibliometric research

Our results show that the topics of nursing bibliometric research revolve around six main areas. Most studies aim to analyse the nursing scholarly literature, either globally or focusing on particular research topics. Other issues of interest for nursing bibliometric research are nursing education, nursing as a profession, nursing research using a particular research method and nursing literature published in a particular country or region. This landscape is consistent with the descriptions of the nursing research activity provided by Alcalá‐Albert and Parra‐González ( 2021 ) or Wang et al. ( 2022 ) who observed an upward trend in publications on topics such as nursing education and the high burden of care among nurses, resulting in stress and burnout syndrome.

Regarding data sources, most studies rely on bibliographic databases, either multidisciplinary citation indexes (the Web of Science and Scopus) or index and abstract databases in the health sciences (PubMed and CINAHL). Previous research has shown that Scopus offers better coverage than the Web of Science for reporting nursing publication metrics (Powell & Peterson,  2017 ). These sources are suitable for systematic reviews and meta‐analysis, offering effective and efficient search results with regards to precision, recall and reproducibility (Gusenbauer,  2022 ; Gusenbauer & Haddaway,  2020 ). Two studies referred to the use of Google Scholar as a data source, although research has shown its unreliability, as evidenced by its inability to provide consistent results for identical queries (Gusenbauer & Haddaway,  2020 ). There was no mention of new open bibliographic sources such as Crossref, Dimensions or OpenAlex that supplement traditional citation indexes in bibliometric studies (Chawla,  2022 ). Research suggests that these new databases have a similar or better coverage than traditional sources (Harzing,  2019 ; Martín‐Martín et al.,  2021 ). Further studies are needed to confirm whether these sources may serve as good alternatives to Scopus and the Web of Science for literature reviews and citation analysis in nursing.

Our findings suggest several potential enhancements in nursing bibliometric studies. For instance, in chronological studies, where trends often reveal an increase in article publications across various topics, it is crucial to consider the expanding pool of indexed journals. This consideration ensures an accurate interpretation of trends and minimizes the risk of misinterpretations. Similarly, investigations into document types or languages should account for the indexing policies of scholarly databases like Scopus and Web of Science, which may lead to an overrepresentation of English publications.

Our exploration into authorship and collaboration analyses highlights the prevalent use of full counting, but fractional counting emerges as a superior method for proper field normalization and network construction, thereby enhancing the precision and reliability of results. Moreover, when identifying core journals and applying Bradford's law of scattering, careful consideration of different subject operationalizations is essential, as these choices profoundly influence outcomes.

The challenges surrounding research funding source identification underscore the imperative of integrating multiple sources to ensure comprehensive and accurate analysis, given the inconsistent information across databases. Our analysis also shows the methodological intricacies of determining research topics in nursing literature. We underscore the limitations of journal classifications in capturing specific topics or themes within individual articles, advocating for more flexible approaches such as keyword extraction from titles and abstracts, combined with database‐provided keywords.

We provide examples of twelve bibliometric approaches for the analysis of scholarly outputs in nursing. Possibly, the most surprising gap in nursing bibliometric literature is the absence of gender analyses of authorship in the discipline. Bibliometric studies confirming gender imbalances in research output are prevalent (Larivière et al.,  2013 ), including nursing research (Porter,  2018 ; Shields et al.,  2011 ). Given that women make up a large majority of members of the profession and the academic discipline of nursing, the lack of further studies on the analysis of gender imbalance among authors in the field is surprising.

4.3. Limitations

The scope of our analysis is limited by the coverage of Scopus, which has been criticized for its overrepresentation of English language journals (Mongeon & Paul‐Hus,  2016 ) and its underrepresentation of journals from the Global South (Borrego et al.,  2023 ). In addition, our search was limited to the presence of the term “bibliometrics” in the titles of the documents, which prevented the retrieval of related concepts such as “citation analysis”, “impact factor” or “scientometrics”, to name just a few. Nevertheless, we consider that the papers surveyed offer a fairly complete overview of the applications of bibliometrics in nursing.

5. CONCLUSION

Bibliometric studies have proved useful to map nursing research. These studies have been relevant to quantify the scholarly output in the field, to understand the social structure of the scientific community that engages in knowledge creation, and to assess the maturity of the discipline. The analysis of references and citations has been applied to measure the consumption of scientific information and has proved to be suitable to assess the comprehensiveness of systematic reviews and clinical guidelines. Further research is still needed to explore the coverage of the nursing literature by new bibliographic data sources and to explore topics such as gender imbalance in research, an issue of great relevance in nursing science.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

Belén Mezquita, Ángel Borrego made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data. Belén Mezquita, Cristina Alfonso‐Arias, Patricia Martínez‐Jaimez, Ángel Borrego involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content. Belén Mezquita, Cristina Alfonso‐Arias, Patricia Martínez‐Jaimez, Ángel Borrego has given final approval of the version to be published. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. Belén Mezquita, Ángel Borrego agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

6. FUNDING INFORMATION

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not‐for‐profit sectors.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT

The authors have no competing interests.

ETHICS STATEMENT

No Research Ethics Committee approval was needed.

Nursing bibliometric papers surveyed

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[2] Ai, Y., Sun, K., & Hu, H. (2017). Bibliometric analysis of papers on mild cognitive impairment nursing in China. International Journal of Nursing Sciences, 4(1), 73–79. doi: 10.1016/j.ijnss.2016.10.005

[3] Alcalá‐Albert, G. J., & Parra‐González, M. E. (2021). Bibliometric analysis of scientific production on nursing research in the web of science. Education Sciences, 11(9) doi: 10.3390/educsci11090455

[4] Anderson, C. A., Keenan, G., & Jones, J. (2009). Using bibliometrics to support your selection of a nursing terminology set. CIN—Computers Informatics Nursing, 27(2), 82–90. doi: 10.1097/NCN.0b013e3181972a24

[5] Avena, M. J., & Barbosa, D. A. (2017). Bibliometric indicators of the nursing journals according to the index databases. Revista da Escola de Enfermagem, 51 doi: 10.1590/S1980‐220X2017014603262

[6] Backes, V. M., do Prado, M. L., Lino, M. M., Ferraz, F., Canever, B. P., Gomes, D. C., & Martini, J. G. (2013). Theses and dissertations of nurses about education in nursing and health: A bibliometric study. Revista Brasileira de Enfermagem, 66(2), 251–256. doi: 10.1590/s0034‐71672013000200015

[7] Baggio, M. A., Rodrigues, M. A., Erdmann, A. L., Figueiredo, M. C. A. B., & Vieira, M. M. S. (2014). Production of nursing thesis and dissertations in Portugal, 2000‐2010: A bibliometric study. Texto e Contexto Enfermagem, 23(2), 250–260. doi: 10.1590/0104‐07072014002190012

[8] Ball, E., McLoughlin, M., & Darvill, A. (2011). Plethora or paucity: A systematic search and bibliometric study of the application and design of qualitative methods in nursing research 2008‐2010. Nurse Education Today, 31(3), 299–303. doi: 10.1016/j.nedt.2010.12.002

[9] Benton, A. D., Ferguson, S. L., Douglas, J. P., & Benton, D. C. (2021). Contrasting views on scope of practice: A bibliometric analysis of allied health, nursing, and medical literature. Journal of Nursing Regulation, 12(1), 4–18. doi: 10.1016/S2155‐8256(21)00016‐8

[10] Benton, D. C., & Brenton, A. S. (2020). Focus and trends in nurse advocacy in the pan American health region: A bibliometric analysis. Revista Latino‐Americana de Enfermagem, 28, 1–8. doi: 10.1590/1518‐8345.4368.3312

[11] Beserra, P. J. F., Gomes, G. L. L., Santos, M. C. F., Bittencourt, G. K. G. D., & Nóbrega, M. M. L. D. (2018). Scientific production of the international classification for nursing practice: A bibliometric study. Revista Brasileira de Enfermagem, 71(6), 2860–2868. doi: 10.1590/0034‐7167‐2017‐0411

[12] Bilik, O., Damar, H. T., Ozdagoglu, G., Ozdagoglu, A., & Damar, M. (2020). Identifying trends, patterns, and collaborations in nursing career research: A bibliometric snapshot (1980–2017). Collegian, 27(1), 40–48. doi: 10.1016/j.colegn.2019.04.005

[13] Blažun Vošner, H., Carter‐Templeton, H., Završnik, J., & Kokol, P. (2020). Nursing informatics: A historical bibliometric analysis. CIN—Computers Informatics Nursing, 38(7), 331–337. doi: 10.1097/CIN.0000000000000624

[14] Blažun Vošner, H., Kokol, P., & Vošner, J. (2015). Research literature production on nursing competences from 1981 till 2012: A bibliometric snapshot. Nurse Education Today, 35(5), 673–679. doi: 10.1016/j.nedt.2015.01.002

[15] Blažun Vošner, H., Kokol, P., Železnik, D., & Završnik, J. (2019). Identifying historical roots of knowledge development in cardiovascular nursing using bibliometrics. International Journal of Nursing Practice, 25(3) doi: 10.1111/ijn.12726 , e12726.

[16] Camacho Rodríguez, D. E., Oviedo Córdoba, H. R., Ramos de la Hoz, E., & González Noguera, T. C. (2016). Bibliometric analysis of articles on nursing care published in Colombian magazines. Enfermeria Global, 15(4), 396–405. doi: 10.6018/eglobal.15.4.248711 .

[17] Cant, R., Cooper, S., & Liaw, S. Y. (2022). An update on the most influential nursing simulation studies: A bibliometric analysis. Clinical Simulation in Nursing, 69, 7–17. doi: 10.1016/j.ecns.2022.05.003 .

[18] Cant, R., Ryan, C., & Kardong‐Edgren, S. (2022). Virtual simulation studies in nursing education: A bibliometric analysis of the top 100 cited studies, 2021. Nurse Education Today, 114 doi: 10.1016/j.nedt.2022.105385 , 105385.

[19] Carter‐Templeton, H., Frazier, R. M., Wu, L., & H. Wyatt, T. (2018). Robotics in nursing: A bibliometric analysis. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 50(6), 582–589. doi: 10.1111/jnu.12399 .

[20] Chang, C., Gau, M., Tang, K., & Hwang, G. (2021). Directions of the 100 most cited nursing student education research: A bibliometric and co‐citation network analysis. Nurse Education Today, 96 doi: 10.1016/j.nedt.2020.104645 , 104645.

[21] Cho, I., Kim, D., & Park, H. (2022). Bibliometrics and co‐citation network analysis of systematic reviews of evidence‐based nursing guidelines for preventing inpatient falls. CIN—Computers Informatics Nursing, 40(2), 95–103. doi: 10.1097/CIN.0000000000000819 .

[22] Çiçek Korkmaz, A., & Altuntaş, S. (2022). A bibliometric analysis of COVID‐19 publications in nursing by visual mapping method. Journal of Nursing Management, 30(6), 1892–1902. doi: 10.1111/jonm.13636 .

[23] Cullen, J. G. (2016). Nursing management, religion and spirituality: A bibliometric review, a research agenda and implications for practice. Journal of Nursing Management, 24(3), 291–299. doi: 10.1111/jonm.12340 .

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