PROGRESS IN MEASURING NURSING OUTCOMES

This paper examines the progress made in the measurement of the 'outco mes' of nursing. Although nursing has a long history of outcome resear ch which extends as far back as Florence Nightingale, an examination o f the literature over the past 30 years gives little impression of pro gress. Significant difficulties still remain in identifying outcomes r elevant to nursing intervention, measurement techniques and appropriat e study designs. However, progress has been made. The paper examines v arious recent trends which point to ways forward for outcome research. In particular it is emphasized that future work should build upon the strengths of past work in the use of measurement tools and the identi fication of relevant variables. Outcome research in nursing should not be limited to identifying the immediate results of nursing interventi on, nor should research into 'structure' or 'process' variables be neg lected. Such concepts are vital to determining the nursing contributio n to changes in a patient's health and wellbeing. The future of outcom e research depends on a range of appropriate research methods and meas urement techniques.