Assimilation into daily practice: implementing and sustaining a randomised-controlled trial in a children's clinical service

Aims and objectives: To explore nurses' experiences of being involved in a clinically based randomised-controlled trial in a children's hospital.

Background: Numerous studies have explored the barriers to research utilisation by nurses. However, there is little information available on the methodological challenges and practical implementation of a study in a busy clinical setting.

Design: A qualitative exploratory descriptive design using semi-structured interviews was adopted.

Methods: A purposeful sample of eight nurses responsible for implementing the research protocols, the consent process and data collection for the randomised-controlled trial were interviewed between March-June 2013. Data were analysed using a thematic network analysis framework.

Results: The analysis of the data yielded the global theme of 'Expectations vs. Reality' as participants discussed their experience of being part of a nurse-led randomised-controlled trial in a busy children's burns service. This global theme arose from three organising themes: developing nursing practice; enhanced research knowledge and time to engage.

Conclusions: The findings from this study suggest that nurses in a busy tertiary children's hospital were generally very positive about being part of a nurse-led randomised-controlled trial. Although the benefits outweighed the challenges of engaging in research for the nurses in this study, this level of commitment and motivation can be difficult to maintain. Collaboration with nurses in clinical practice and the development of support structures can help to promote sustainable engagement in research.

Relevance to clinical practice: The findings highlight the importance of developing robust structures which support nurses at clinical level to engage in research without feeling they must choose between competing priorities of patient care and research activity.