Designing effective nursing interventions

The purpose of this article is to present issues scientists must consider t o design effective experimental interventions. The efforts of nurse-researc hers to test diverse interventions are consistent with the central role of interventions for the nursing discipline. Despite the importance of interve ntions, limited literature has addressed the actual design of these interve ntions. Many experimental interventions lack content validity, and others a re inadequate to affect outcomes. Eight issues to consider in the developme nt of interventions are discussed, including the conceptual basis of the in tervention, descriptive research linking key concepts to the proposed outco me, previous intervention literature testing similar or related interventio ns, the intervention target, intervention specificity/generality, single or bundled interventions, intervention delivery, and intervention dose. Strat egies are recommended for designing effective experimental interventions. ( C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.