EDITORIAL

Nursing research: toward the search for excellent healthcare

A investigação em enfermagem: para a busca do cuidado excelente

José Rafael González López¹

¹Guest Editor. RN, Ph.D. Professor. University of Seville, Spain. email: joserafael@us.es.

How to cite this article: González-López JR. Nursing research: toward the search for excellent healthcare. Invest Educ Enferm. 2013;31(1): 7.

Since the beginning of the nursing discipline, its professionals have been concerned with caring for people. Along the centuries, nurses have based themselves on the study of different behavioral, cultural, and environmental factors, according to the technical media and resources available to achieve a better state of health of the population cared for.

Each of the moments in history has led the evolution of care; however, nurses have never forgotten the need for the individual to be the center of their actions and for the attention offered to be of the highest quality.

Currently, nursing research is an important element in assessing the care offered to individuals, families, or the community, which has as fundamental pillars, on the one hand, the body of methodological, theoretical, and practical knowledge inherent to the discipline and profession that are part of the nursing process; and on the other hand, the research methodology with the research process.

The nursing process and the research process complement each other in the daily work of these professionals as systematic methods of caregiving to improve the state of health of individuals and communities, proposing objectives to find efficient solutions to problems detected.

To perform caregiving, teaching, management, or research functions, nursing professionals require skills in the search for the best evidence available to make decisions. For the aforementioned, it is important that as healthcare professionals we continue making every effort to improve the use of the nursing knowledge published in disciplinary journals and in continuous education to advance in the permanent search for excellent care.