Exploring the future of gerontological nursing outcomes

This paper explores some of the global challenges in gerontological nursing and suggests that nurses need to be able to identify better more appropriate person-centred outcomes, to justify their own worth in caring for older people. It highlights some of the methodological difficulties of measuring outcomes for older people and, more generally, of determining the value and contribution of nursing. It argues that, to address some of these methodological challenges, more participative approaches to research are needed, highlighting the particular value of action research. It suggests that if research is to be meaningful to both older people and those caring for them, there is an urgent need for gerontological nursing research to become much more person-centred and practice/action oriented.