CONDITIONS, INTERVENTIONS, AND OUTCOMES IN NURSING RESEARCH - A COMPARATIVE-ANALYSIS OF NORTH-AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN INTERNATIONAL JOURNALS (1981-1990)

This study compared the conceptual foci and methodological characteris tics of research projects which tested the effects of nursing interven tions, published in four general nursing research journals with predom inantly North American, and two with predominantly European/Internatio nal authorship and readership. Dimensions and variables of comparison included: nature of subjects, design issues, statistical methodology, statistical power, and types of interventions and outcomes. Although s ome differences emerged, the most striking and consistent finding was that there were no statistically significant differences (and thus sim ilarities) in the content foci and methodological parameters of the in tervention studies published in both groups of journals. We conclude t hat European/International and North American nursing intervention stu dies, as reported in major general nursing research journals, are high ly similar in the parameters studied, yet in need of overall improveme nt. Certainly, there is no empirical support for the common (explicit or implicit) ethnocentric American bias that leadership in nursing int ervention research resides with and in the United States of America.