The National Institute for Nursing Research (NINR) has been active in developing a research portfolio of investigator-initiated studies in addressing the cause and consequences of menstrual cycle and menopause-related health problems, This chapter provides an overview of the nature and level of research activity funded by NINR since its inception in 1986, major findings generated by the most successful award recipients, the impact on the broader field of women’s reproductive health and directions for future research. Presented here is an analysis of research designs and methodologies framed within the context of 4 stages of scientific development in the field: exploratory, descriptive studies in well women; illness as a biobehavioral phenomenon; knowledge generation in understudied populations; and the development and testing of clinical therapeutics for symptom management and health promotion strategies. Nursing science contributions to the NINR portfolio of women’s health research has been focused primarily on the definition and management of the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome and menopause. The increasing numbers of intervention studies suggests a coming-of-age in nursing science with respect to the development of evidence-based outcome data for the management of menstrual cycle and menopause-related symptoms. Clearly, the range and diversity of NINR grant-funded activity suggest that menstrual cycle research is a strong area of interest in nursing science.

Ideal and effective communication consists of a clear, audible, and focused message from a transmitter that is delivered to an attentive, undistracted receiver, and consists of both verbal and nonverbal types. Communication in the health care setting is highly complex and dynamic, involving multiple settings, participants, and unique challenges. Effective communication in the perioperative environment is a requirement for safe patient care delivery and an important element of teamwork. A message must be accurately delivered in a uniquely high-risk and time-sensitive location, beset with numerous distractions, barriers, and challenges. Surgical checklists and time-out procedures have promoted a standardized, "all-hands" approach to addressing some of the challenges to effective communication in the perioperative environment. Postoperative debriefing sessions have demonstrated effectiveness in improving team functioning in the simulated learning environment and hold promise as another strategy to address these challenges, but require further research and development. Other promising strategies to improve effective perioperative communication are focused on team building activities and minimizing distractions at critical time points within patient care delivery, but to date are not substantiated by evidence. Future research is necessary to examine these novel approaches to improving communication in the perioperative environment to influence the safety of patient care delivery in this highly challenging health care setting.

Primary Health Care (PHC) has been promulgated for over two decades as a global strategy for ensuring basic health care for all people. PHC is characterized by equity, accessibility, availability of resources, social participation, intersectoral community action, and cultural sensitivity. While PHC can be discussed as philosophy or a process, it is critical that PHC be understood as a community focus in health care that differs from a primary care focus on individuals. Capturing PHC components in community-based interventions in order to advance the development of a rigorous research base requires a shift in thinking about what constitutes acceptable methods and evidence for evaluating changes in health care. To this end, the authors of this review discuss perspectives and available research that inform practice within multidisciplinary teams, highlight the importance of social discourse, and review participatory evaluation issues for achieving a working relationship with communities. Particular attention is focused on education for nurses’ roles in PHC activities within implementation models fostering community mobilization and development. An action plan is suggested as a means for situating discrete research activity within a PHC framework.

Nursing scholarship on children and their families has increased rapidly over the past decades. This research focuses on infants, children, and adolescents and their families facing acute or chronic illness, as well as on promoting health and preventing disease in children. While the amount and scope of research in pediatric nursing has increased, the methods and theories used are diverse and are often not based on the most recent science in the broader fields of developmental research. Developmental science, which evolved over the past two decades into a new interdisciplinary framework for the study of human development, involves an integrated holistic, developmental, and systems-oriented perspective. According to this view, the individual functions and develops through dynamic and complex processes involving the integration of many systems within the individual, including mental, biological, and behavioral systems. In addition, individuals function and develop in a continuously ongoing, reciprocal process of interaction with their environment and, as such, have an influence on that environment. These nonlinear, dynamic processes demand complex conceptualizations and research designs if one is to truly understand human development, including health and illness. Key aspects of developmental science important in conceptualization, design, measurement, and data analysis are identified. By providing a framework for critiquing research and presenting recommendations for future research based on developmental science, we hope to move nursing research with children forward toward more developmentally sound knowledge of nursing practice.