The potential of meta-synthesis for nursing care effectiveness research.

A brief synopsis of metasynthesis research is provided and several ways in which this research approach could contribute to an expanded understanding and perhaps new conceptualizations and theoretical underpinnings in the Ž eld of inquiry of nursing care effectiveness.

Abstract

The need for an integration of nursing research Ž ndings within particular Ž elds of study has received a great deal of attention in recent years (Sandelowski & Barroso, 2002).This need has arisen largely in response to the increasing numbers of individual research studies on similar phenomena and the lack of cumulative knowledge demonstrating how Ž ndings from these discrete studies might inform decisions on health-care delivery (Chalmers, Hedges, & Cooper, 2002). Recently, several nurse researchers have articulated strategies for synthesizing bodies of qualitative research (e.g., Estabrooks, Field, & Morse, 1994; Jensen & Allen, 1996; Paterson,Thorne, Canam, & Jillings, 2001; Sandelowski & Barroso). “Meta-synthesis” has become a generic term for the range of methodological approaches whereby the Ž ndings from several research studies are synthesized to produce a new and expanded understanding about the topic of inquiry. In the following discussion, we will provide a brief synopsis of metasynthesis research and identify several ways in which this research approach could contribute to an expanded understanding and perhaps new conceptualizations and theoretical underpinnings in the Ž eld of inquiry of nursing care effectiveness.Although some of what is published as meta-synthesis research is clearly intended to eventually contribute to nursing care effectiveness knowledge, we were unable to locate any studies in which that level of maturity had been achieved. Because of this, the examples that are provided herein represent other Ž elds of inquiry.