Military Nursing Research by Students at the Graduate School of Nursing Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences

Military Medicine, Mar 2005 by Abdellah, Faye G, Levine, Eugene, Sylvia, Barbara, Kelley, Patricia W, Et al

Guided by the faculty committee, called the thesis committee, students conducted their projects as a solo endeavor in strict accordance with a manual that dictated the procedures to be followed for each step of the thesis process. After completion of the research, students defended their results in a final, detailed report to the faculty committee.

Beginning with the entering class of 2001, in line with trends in graduate nursing programs throughout the nation, the scholarly project process at the GSN was revised to allow students various options in addition to the individually conducted thesis. The process is now as follows: In the first year of the research courses, each student prepares a research proposal using the USPHS Form 398, the well-known "Application for a PHS Grant." After the proposal is approved by the faculty committee, the GSN Dean, and the IRB, the student conducts the project, which may culminate in a traditional thesis or in a report prepared as an article for publication in a professional journal. Furthermore, students can conduct projects individually, as was done when the only type of scholarly project permitted was a thesis, or the project may be carried out by a team of several students. These changes and the emphasis on publishing results of scholarly projects in professional journals and on presenting them at professional meetings will undoubtedly increase the communication of findings from the students' research.

Analysis of Completed Scholarly Projects

When the scholarly project process began to come under review during the summer of 1999, a computerized database of completed theses was created. The Thesis Database, as it is called, contains data on various characteristics of the students' research, including theoretical framework, research design, sample subjects, research methodology, and statistical tools used. Because the scholarly projects process has been significantly revised, the writers of this article decided to aggregate the data contained in the database to obtain a description of the 150 projects completed under the original scholarly projects program. In addition to the data in the Thesis Database, we decided to classify the students' projects according to two new descriptors, "research priorities" and "research areas." These descriptors have been developed to categorize projects receiving grant support from the TSNRP.

This article contains the results of the analysis of the 150 scholarly projects completed by GSN students from 1995 through 2002. The analysis serves several useful purposes: It provides an historical documentation of the military nursing research conducted by students during the early days of the GSN, and it offers a useful source of information to future military nurse researchers on research topics, methodologies, and findings from successfully completed research.

Of the 150 reports in the Thesis Database, 143 are theses reports and 7 are research articles by students in a program called the MSN Completion Program. This program was offered briefly by the GSN to students with graduate nursing degrees other than the MSN who needed the MSN to meet certification requirements as CRNAs or FNPs. The "completion" students were offered the option of preparing a paper rather than a thesis report because they had already completed theses for their previous graduate nursing degrees.