PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

M Traynor

Publications and source records attributed to M Traynor.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Endogenous and exogenous research? Findings from a bibliometric study of UK nursing research.

AIMS OF THE STUDY: This paper uses the findings of a recent bibliometric analysis of published UK nursing research to ask whether the field is characterized by a fundamental split between two underlying areas of research interest. These can be termed 'endogenous' and 'exogenous'. The former term describes research which tends to be concerned with problems and issues to do with nursing as a profession; the latter is concerned with problems and issues centring around the nursing of patients. DESIGN/METHODS: Papers in the Wellcome Trust's Research Outputs Database (ROD), a database of UK biomedical research, were analysed. Nursing papers published between 1988 and 1995 numbered 1,845, just less than 1% of the total papers in the ROD. RESULTS/FINDINGS: Analysis of the subfield identified that nursing research was atypical of biomedical research as a whole in a number of ways. One difference was that usually in biomedical research there is a general correlation between numbers of funders acknowledged on a paper, numbers of authors, and esteem of the journal in which a paper appears. In nursing there was, if anything, a tendency for highly esteemed papers to have fewer authors and be less likely to have acknowledged funding. However, the apparently endogenous and exogenous papers have quite different characteristics. This paper explores this apparent difference and possible reasons for this difference and will briefly compare nursing research with some other newly emerging social and academic groups. CONCLUSIONS: Thinking of nursing research outputs in this way can provide insight into the existence of different reward systems influencing nurse researchers. However, it is impossible to draw too confident a differentiation without reading each individual paper and making judgements about whether they are 'endogenous' or 'exogenous', a practice generally beyond the scope of bibliometric practice.

Authorship↗
PubMed1999

Nurse education in an international context: the contribution of contingency.

Attempts to reform nurse education in the U.K. have met with limited success. A brief examination of similar moves in other countries reveals a similar situation. Placing experiences in this country in the context of global reform, it is possible to suggest that three sets of conditions need to be satisfied for change to follow: these relate to context, convergence and contingency. Context refers to the creation of a positive climate of opinion or a case and pressure for change. Convergence refers to the fortuitous fusion of professional and government agendas. Contingency provides the unforeseen consequence, the spark that ignites a policy change. The implications for further educational reform in this country are briefly discussed.

Australia↗
PubMed1999

Nursing and the research assessment exercise: past, present and future.

In this paper we examine approaches to undertaking nursing research and building research capacity in higher education institutions in the United Kingdom (UK). First we review some of the main responses in the literature to the last two Research Assessment Exercises (RAE), then we report findings from a small study of nursing departments which entered the last RAE and finally we speculate on the likely future of nursing research in the light of recent education and health policy. We suggest that many of the difficulties experienced are an effect of contradictory health and education policies and rival ways of assessing research performance. Nursing education is caught in the 'pincer movement' of stringency in both sectors. In addition, the challenges of the RAE and the necessity to earn income from contracting with National Health Service (NHS) education and training consortia for teaching represent an outworking of two rival views of the role of higher education, broadly an elitist view and one that sees higher education as a supplier of the workforce needs of industry. In addition to this, the NHS R&D (research and development) strategy provides an alternative arena for collaboration, funding and reputation to that constructed by the RAE.

Evaluation Studies as Topic↗
PubMed1999

The problem of dissemination: evidence and ideology.

This paper recontextualises research evidence as an example of textually-based social control. It does this by drawing on two areas of theoretical literature; feminist literary theory and the sociology of scientific knowledge. Accounts of literary works as ideological instruments of social control suggest that (at least some kinds of) research literature may fulfil a similar role among a clinical readership. There have also been compelling accounts of scientific writing as expressions of desire on the part of one group to 'act at a distance' upon others. In the light of this literature, it becomes less tenable to see research dissemination as the simple transfer of information, supplemented by organisational work. Research is implicated in the attempt by one group to enrol others in its own project and in the (self-)construction of the identities of the healthcare worker. The accounts that literary theory can provide do not remain focused upon the text, but draw links between the reading process and the experience and place in society, for example the gender, of the writer and reader. As such their explanations create a space for the resisting reader.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed1997

Postmodern research: no grounding or privilege, just free-floating trouble making.

Postmodernism has been criticized as failing to offer, on the one hand, authoritative explanations for social phenomena that might provide a scientific basis for policy formation or, on the other, the philosophical justification for emancipatory work-its radical scepticism about claims to knowledge leaving its advocates, including many nurses, with little scope to transform oppressive social and political regimes. Various approaches to this important problem have been offered, both philosophical and methodological. Some critical theorists have rejected certain aspects of postmodernism as dangerous and distracting. Some more accommodating solutions are troubled by unacknowledged inconsistencies. Others embrace postmodernism's unavoidable ambiguity (towards the Enlightenment for instance) with a lighter heart. In this paper I will review some of the criticism of postmodernism and some proposed solutions to these problems. Using recent research into the impact of managerialism on nursing within the UK National Health Service as an example and drawing on deconstructive literary theory, I conclude by accepting a rhetorical agonistics of undecidability. I take postmodernism as a mandate for causing trouble for those groups who are currently having their say and whose version of truth and rationality has achieved domination over others. I do not take postmodernism as a place from which to champion the cause or privilege the view of any particular group.

Feminism↗
PubMed1996

Looking at discourse in a literature review of nursing texts.

The issue of knowledge has generated much literature, recently from writers influenced by post-modernism. These writers argue that an epistemological space has existed since the time of the Enlightenment with which anyone concerned with value or truth has to grapple. The analysis of nursing texts detailed in this paper gives an account of such grappling. The link between discourse, knowledge and power is also explored. Using a discourse analysis approach, this paper offers an examination of nursing texts on research, education, professionalization or conceptualizations known as nursing models. It argues that groups in nursing have responded to the dominant biomedical discourse by seeking to re-establish their activities within a different discourse, one involving caring, holism and, within research, a qualitative approach. Others have aligned their search for appropriate truth claims with feminist projects. After examining some of these responses, this paper attempts to point to some of the problems of aligning a professional strategy with one of political emancipation and philosophical shift. The paper argues that the issue of a philosophical and moral base for nursing is particularly crucial at a time when so-called market rationalism dominates not only in health care but in an increasing range of human activities.

Feminism↗
PubMed1994

The views and values of community nurses and their managers: research in progress--one person's pain, another person's vision.

This paper presents preliminary findings from research being carried out into how community nurses in three first-wave community trusts are responding to changes stemming from recent legislation. A Measure of Job Satisfaction was devised for the study for administration to the entire nursing workforce in the participating trusts and semi-structured interviews were carried out with managers at all levels in each of the trusts. This paper concentrates on the textual data arising from the study dealing with how nurses understood the values of managers and how managers viewed nurses' values. Nurses tended to express their beliefs about managers as a series of us-them oppositions while the comments of managers can be seen within a rational/irrational dualism. Some possible theoretical frameworks in which these texts can be further explored are briefly discussed, including Foucault's power/knowledge concept and the literature of 'colonization'.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed1993

The development of a measure of job satisfaction for use in monitoring the morale of community nurses in four trusts.

The development of the Measure of Job Satisfaction (MJS) for use in a longitudinal study of the morale of community nurses in four trusts is described. The review of previous studies focuses on the use of principal component analysis or factor analysis in the development of measures. The MJS was developed from a bank of items culled from the literature and from discussions with key informants. It was mailed to a one in three sample of 723 members of the community nursing forums of the Royal College of Nursing. A 72% response rate was obtained from those eligible for inclusion. Principal component analysis with varimax rotation led to the identification of five dimensions of job satisfaction; Personal Satisfaction, Satisfaction with Workload, Satisfaction with Professional Support, Satisfaction with Pay and Prospects and Satisfaction with Training. These factors form the basis of five subscales of satisfaction which summate to give an Overall Job Satisfaction score. Internal consistency, test-retest reliability, concurrent and discriminatory validity were assessed and were found to be satisfactory. The factor structure was replicated using data obtained from the first three of the community trusts involved in the main study. The limitations of the study and issues which require further exploration are identified and discussed.

Career Mobility↗
PubMed1993

The tobacco industry, state politics, and tobacco education in California.

OBJECTIVES: Proposition 99 added 25 cents to the California state cigarette tax and mandated that 20% of the new revenues be spent on tobacco education and prevention programs. This paper examines the implementation of these programs and the tobacco industry's response to Proposition 99. METHODS: Political expenditure data for twelve tobacco firms and associations were gathered from California's Fair Political Practices Commission and secretary of state's Political Reform Division. Tobacco education expenditure data were collected from Governor's Budgets and the Department of Finance. RESULTS: Since Proposition 99 passed, tobacco industry political expenditures in California have risen 10-fold, from $790,050 in the 1985-1986 election to $7,615,091 in the 1991-1992 election. The tobacco industry is contributing more heavily to the California legislature than to Congress. A statistical analysis of data on campaign contributions indicates that California legislators' policy-making is influenced by campaign contributions from the tobacco industry. Since fiscal year 1989-1990, the state has ignored the voters' mandate and spent only 14.7% of the new revenues to tobacco education. Medical care programs received more money than permitted by the voters. CONCLUSIONS: The tobacco industry has become politically active in California following the passage of Proposition 99. One result may be that the state has underfunded tobacco education by $174.7 million through the 1993-1994 fiscal year. The estimated redirection of funds to medical care would essentially eliminate the tobacco education campaign by the year 2000.

California↗
PubMed1993

Some current issues for health visiting.

Michael Traynor argues that recent legislation with its emphasis not only on targeted, measurable and effective service but also on the importance of health promotion offers exciting opportunities for health visiting. But to take advantage of these, health visitors will need to become familiar with the growing body of research into the evaluation of health visitors' preventive, supportive and health promotion roles.

Community Health Nursing↗
PubMed1993

Health visitors' perceptions of their role.

A new era of demonstrable cost effectiveness in the health service has made health visitors more nervous, perhaps, than any other group of health workers. Their job involves 'unquantifiable' activities like support, prevention and health promotion. The irony is, that these activities are every bit as vital as they are hard to measure, writes Michael Traynor.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗