A Scoping Review of Nursing Research Priorities in Pediatric Care

Problem: Priority setting for pediatric nursing is important to plan, coordinate and direct future research. The aim of this scoping review was to systematically identify and synthesise the nature, range and extent of published pediatric nursing research priorities. Eligibility criteria: English language full text publications focusing generic nursing research priorities for the child or adolescent, indexed in CINAHL, EMBASE, The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, AMED, MEDLINE and PsycINFO and published from 2008 to 2019. Sample: A total of 789 citations were identified, 44 full text articles were retrieved and assessed for eligibility and eight studies were finally reviewed, quality assessed (CREDES) and synthesised. Results: All eight studies used a consensus building method to identify research priorities reported by nurses. Six used Delphi technique, one Nominal Group Technique (NGT) and one consensus workshop. CREDES score range was 10-14 of a possible 16. Synthesis of the 234 nursing research priorities generated four themes; evidenced-based practice, pediatric context, child and family-centered care; pediatric nursing, with 14 subthemes. Conclusion: The nursing research priorities reported appear to be still current and important to nurses. There was a focus on acute care, with fewer priorities reflecting areas of child-, school-, or mental- health. Consumer and community priorities have not been reported. (C) 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.