A systematic review of nursing research priorities on health system and services in the Americas

• Main Authors: Alessandra Bassalobre Garcia, Silvia Helena De Bortoli Cassiani, Ludovic Reveiz
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; Spanish; Portuguese
• Published: Pan American Health Organization 2015
• Subjects: Agenda de investigación en salud; investigación sobre servicios de saud; sistemas de salud; personal de enfermería; salud pública; Américas; Medicine; R; Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine; RC955-962; Public aspects of medicine; RA1-1270; Arctic
• Online Access: https://doaj.org/article/f39f2ddd15b14083a0fcc16b838bf18d

OBJECTIVE: To systematically review literature on priorities in nursing research on health systems and services in the Region of the Americas as a step toward developing a nursing research agenda that will advance the Regional Strategy for Universal Access to Health and Universal Health Coverage. METHOD: This was a systematic review of the literature available from the following databases: Web of Science, PubMed, LILACS, and Google. Documents considered were published in 2008-2014; in English, Spanish, or Portuguese; and addressed the topic in the Region of the Americas. The documents selected had their priority-setting process evaluated according to the "nine common themes for good practice in health research priorities." A content analysis collected all study questions and topics, and sorted them by category and subcategory. RESULTS: Of 185 full-text articles/documents that were assessed for eligibility, 23 were selected: 12 were from peer-reviewed journals; 6 from nursing publications; 4 from Ministries of Health; and 1 from an international organization. Journal publications had stronger methodological rigor; the majority did not present a clear implementation or evaluation plan. After compiling the 444 documents' study questions and topics, the content analysis resulted in a document with 5 categories and 16 subcategories regarding nursing research priorities on health systems and services. CONCLUSIONS: Research priority-setting is a highly important process for health services improvement and resources optimization, but implementation and evaluation plans are rarely included. The resulting document will serve as basis for the development of a new nursing research agenda focused on health systems and services, and shaped to advance universal health coverage and universal access to health.