The department for health studies at the UiS currently has three priority areas in nursing research: health promotion, user participation and the critically ill. Several teams of researchers are working on these topics.
Prof Severinsson, head of research in the department, has many years of practical experience in such projects as well as building up research groups and programmes in all health-related fields.
- Our work is intended to improve patient-centred research in clinical nursing, she explains.
- The most important goals are to improve the patient’s position and focus on existential issues which fall outside medical research, such as dignity, sorrow and suffering.
She maintains that the department’s commitment to preventive medicine and to putting the patient in the centre of attention is unique.
- Our attention is concentrated on four phenomena related to patient-centred research. Representing the core of our research teams’ work, these are anxiety, depression, guilt and shame.
Prevention
PhD projects in the department deal with such issues as prevention of suicide attempts, self-harm by young girls and user participation for drug addicts and people with dementia. Research is also pursued into chronic illness and patient rights.
One of the research projects led by Prof Severinsson deals with post-natal depression and maintenance of women’s mental health.
This is a collaboration between the UiS, Stavanger University Hospital (SUS) and researchers in Australia and Japan.
The research team also includes PhD students Kristin Akerjordet and Marit Alstveit as well as postdoctoral fellow Ingrid Bégat.
- We have a good collaboration today with SUS, Prof Severinsson reports.
- It’s interested in developments in our nursing research.
These institutions also cooperate on research into patient safety.
Worried
Prof Severinsson is worried about the development of nursing research if further funds are not provided. She believes that lack of resources will primarily hit recruitment to research work, and that a commitment must be made to educating nurses who want to do research. Norway lags far behind other countries in this area.
- It’s difficult to motivate young people to enter nursing today, she says.
- The profession is badly paid and has a low social status. To safeguard future recruitment, we must be able to offer career opportunities in the form of an education which allows nurses to do research.
- But we don’t have the funds. Many of today’s nurses are interested in research and have the potential to be educated for such work. Under present conditions, however, we run the risk that they’ll move to other professions.
- Without nurses who have the necessary expertise, it won’t be possible to develop research in the profession. Such work is important because the exercise of nursing care must be scientifically-based.
Prof Severinsson adds that a commitment to educating researchers would tighten existing links between university and hospital.
It would also stimulate a transfer of relevant research from adjoining disciplines. Much of this material is currently inaccessible to practising nurses.
- We need more funds to liberate ourselves from the medical research we compete with today, she says.
- Another challenge is to build up enough research expertise in this department.
Initiative
The UiS, the SUS and Laerdal Medical AS took a joint initiative in the autumn of 2004 to establish the Stavanger Acute Medicine Foundation for Education and Research (Safer).
This facility is intended to strengthen education in acute medicine and patient safety, in the first instance by strengthening the expertise of personnel at the three founders.
Opened in May 2006, the centre will also pursue research and develop courses. It forms part of an active network collaboration with leading international medical simulation institutions.
- Safer is important for both research and education, says Venche Hvidsten, who heads the department for health studies.
- It offers major cross-disciplinary opportunities.
- This facility provides great benefits for our students through simulation and observation. Those who’ve been through the training there come back with an enthusiastic gleam in their eye.
Crucial
The UiS is the only Norwegian university to offer a bachelor’s degree in nursing, and Prof Severinsson says that a combination of research and education is crucial in providing good courses.
- We’re constantly evaluating what we do in order to improve our educational and research results. High standards are set for scientifically-based teaching and the use of research references at all levels. Education and research are mutually dependent.
- I have many interesting experiences in my roles as a professor of health studies and as a research leader, including exciting research results or when a student defends their thesis.
- One of our dreams in this department is to establish a centre for patient research at some time in the future.
