A decade of research in nurse anesthesia.

These investigators describe the characteristics of nurse anesthesia research reported in the AANA Journal in 1975-1976 and 1985-1986 and compare nurse anesthesia research to overall nursing research as reported by Brown, Tanner and Padrick. The amount of nurse anesthesia research remained stable, with an even greater focus on clinical practice than in nursing research overall. The 1980's research, as in all nursing, was more theoretically oriented than the 1970's studies. Nurse anesthesia research designs were mainly descriptive, with a trend toward explanatory and prospective. As in all nursing research, convenience samples of hospitalized individuals were most common. More pronounced in nurse anesthesia research than in nursing overall were deficiencies in reporting of reliability and validity of data, psychometric evaluation of instruments and use of statistics. Trends toward CRNA authorship and addressing ethical concerns were identified. Recommendations included increased emphasis on methodological studies, conceptual links and statistical analysis; extension to topics of nursing education and administration and characteristics of nurses; and replication of studies.