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Nursing research in Jordan: a vision for excellency

2008; Wiley; Volume: 22; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1471-6712.2008.00650.x

1471-6712

Jehad O. Halabi,

Innovations in Medical Education

In Jordan, the higher education institutions belong to the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research which plays a great role in regulating education in the country. At the local level, since 1973, each university in Jordan, starting with the mother university (University of Jordan) has established a special deanship under the name ‘Deanship of Academic Research’. The deanship is responsible for organizing, supervising, promoting and supporting academic research, being the means for vast development and technological advancement. The higher nursing education in Jordan started with the establishment of the Faculty of Nursing (FoN) at the University of Jordan in 1972 by a Royal Decree. It was the first programme in Jordan that offered a Baccalaureate Degree in Nursing. Since then, 11 other nursing programmes offering BSc degree were opened in Jordan. In 1986, FoN was the first school to offer Masters Programme in nursing education to meet the country and regional need for highly qualified nurse educators. Furthermore, and in order to meet national demands for nurse educators and researchers, the FoN launched the first nursing PhD programme in the country in 2005. In Jordan, there is a steady increase in the number of nurses seeking higher education, therefore, become prepared for nurse researcher’s role. All, except a few, PhD holders in the country were educated and trained in western countries. Therefore, and as pioneers, they carry the huge responsibility for developing their profession from all domains. Some are significant members of international organizations, on the editorial boards and reviewers for prestigious international nursing journals. With the limited number of faculty, huge number of students and carrying the title of ‘have to be the scarifying pioneers’ nurse researchers in Jordan and similar developing countries have to be highly appreciated and appraised for their efforts in sharing the knowledge with colleagues around the world. The Jordanian Nursing Council (JNC) has since its establishment, had the support of her Royal Highness Princess Muna Al Hussein. One of JNCs main objectives is supporting scientific research with the aim of enhancing the development of the profession. In 2005, JNC established a data base for nursing and midwifery. They worked with all Jordanian Nursing Schools and key people towards identifying national research priorities and interests. They anticipate to develop online sources that can be beneficial to all nurse researchers in the country and the region, and to continue to develop research finding implications and dissemination to be primary sources for nurses in the service area, in the hospitals, in schools and in the community as a whole. Furthermore, a ‘Strategy Committee’ was established and has accomplished the nursing strategy of Jordan for the years (2006–2010) which consist of eight core dimensions, including research and development. The main objective is ‘nurturing the scientific research, and research culture among nurses in the various health institutions’. Researchers in nursing have made great efforts to build the scientific knowledge and published their studies in internationally recognized journals. Jordan, as well as most countries in the region, yet has no special scientific journal for nursing to publish and efforts have been made for decades to reach that dream. Nurses in Jordan believe in the importance of scientific research in developing health care and in promoting scientific knowledge. At different levels, the importance of assuring that most studies have national and regional implications and to focus on applied and intervention research proposals so that they can find the appropriate and culturally sensitive implications for the different evidences found in the international nursing studies. Nurse researchers in Jordan, and in the region, depend on western-developed research tools and frameworks. Yet, these are of good and great use and implications in their original context, there is not enough support that it is also the case when used in different culture and different language. Therefore, there is a need to build Arabic nursing theories and models, and Arabic research tools and devices. Nurse researchers in Jordan and the region are faced with the problem of getting access to international journals. Several journals around the globe are not much interested in articles from developing countries and found it more of interest to local audience in the local country. However, most nurses in developing countries have no local journal at their country or regional level. The nurse in Jordan for example can only read articles about any subject area if they were published in journals in USA, UK, Canada, Australia, and Sweden and so on. Therefore, there is a need of local, national and regional popular scientific journals and a greater international interest for papers and research from developing countries. In the age of globalization and internationalization, this issue sounds very urgent. The need for the publication of more scientific research papers is evident, but it is important that they appear in large-circulating journals which disseminate new information throughout the world. It is a plus for any journal to stress that research papers from all over the world have been accepted by this journal. The aim of researchers in various Schools of Nursing and the JNC as well, is to contribute to this research development by producing high-quality research of national and international excellence and ultimately to enhance health and social wellbeing of all Jordanians. Special emphasis is needed to facilitate securing enough funds for nurse researchers in these countries. Universities in Jordan such as the University of Jordan have good international collaboration with international institutions around the world. Faculties of nursing as well are known as international collaborator with nurses from different countries. Nurse researchers in Jordan had good collaboration with other colleagues in other countries such as USA, Sweden, Australia, Canada and UK. This has facilitated the conduct, writing, publication and dissemination of research knowledge from local research findings. It is an open call to colleagues from international institutions to extend their hand to collaborate and support their research colleagues in developing countries. We, nurse researchers in Jordan, look ahead towards further documenting our past and current achievements, developing our research data base, meeting all challenges of tomorrow with confidence and tools that lead to considerable success of previous knowledge, and can continue to build the bridges between nurses in the developing and developed nations. It is important to identify additional sources for funding nursing research proposals of national interest and priority. It is a great pleasure and honour to be an elected editorial board member of the Scandinavian Journal for Caring Sciences. This is a great opportunity for me to take part in such a prestigious journal that involves researchers, authors and audience from a variety of countries around the world. I hope this opportunity be a new link between this international journal staff and audience and developing world. It is another evidence of the value of internationalization held by this journal. I look forward to and hope to have the opportunity to help maintain continuity and high standards of the journal.