Graduate nursing degree online

Military nursing research has had a long and productive history. Today, much of this research is conducted under two programs, the TriService Nursing Research Program and the Graduate School of Nursing (GSN), both located at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. This article will discuss the 150 military nursing research projects carried out by students at the GSN since its founding in 1992. Although most projects have been small in scope, they have obtained useful results. Some projects have served as the basis for larger-scale research studies, receiving funding from the TriService Nursing Research Program. Reports of all projects are available in an online database and some have been published in professional journals. This review concludes that the research produced by GSN students has been beneficial to students and to the military health system.

Introduction

Military nursing research has had a long and productive history. As defined in a report by the Institute of Medicine, "Military nursing research focuses on enhancing health care delivery systems and processes to improve clinical outcomes, advancing the practice of military nursing in support of mission readiness and deployment, and contributing to the health status and quality of life of military personnel and their beneficiaries."1

Today, a large share of military nursing research is conducted under two programs: the TriService Nursing Research Program (TSNRP) and the Graduate School of Nursing (GSN), both located at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) in Bethesda, Maryland. The University was established by the Uniformed Services Health Professions Act of 1972 (Public Law 92-426 and Department of Defense Directive 5105-45), which directed that as a separate agency of the Department of Defense, the USUHS must meet the requirements of medical readiness and expand to meet the future needs of the Uniformed Services of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and U.S. Public Heath Service (USPHS).

The TSNRP was established in 1992 to support targeted research by military nurses by providing funding through research grant awards. Through fiscal year 2003, it has funded more than 220 research projects. Although this article focuses on military nursing research by students at the GSN, a similar review of the TSNRP projects is planned for the future.

GSN was established in 1992 under the leadership of its founding dean, Dr. Paye G. Abdellah, to meet the needs for advanced practice nurses in the Uniformed Services.2 Thus, by adding the GSN to the educational resources provided by its School of Medicine and Graduate Education Programs, the USUHS offers a unique setting for interdisciplinary education and research in military health.

Two graduate programs offering the Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) degree were initially created at the GSN: Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) and Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA). Both programs are fully accredited by the National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission, the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education, and the Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Educational Programs (COA). In 2002, the National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission gave the GSN full accreditation for 8 years, and, in the same year, the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education accredited the GSN for 10 years.3 The CRNA program is also fully accredited by the COA. In October 2003, the COA granted continued accreditation through the fall of 2013.

Since its inception, the GSN has added additional programs to its initial two offerings. For a number of years, the GSN conducted a Post-Master Adult Nurse Practitioner Distance Learning Program for nurses in the Veterans Administration. Known as the Veterans Affairs/Department of Defense Distance Learning Program, it graduated a total of 19 students during its existence.4 In 2003, the GSN accepted 14 students to its newly created PhD program and admitted 8 students to a new Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) program.

Since admitting its first students in 1993 through the end of 2003, the GSN has graduated a total of 200 students from its two initial MSN programs: 104 CRNAs and 96 FNPs. In 2003, a total of 56 students were enrolled in these two programs: 41 CRNAs and 15 FNPs.

In the first 10 years of the GSN, students have come from all military branches as well as from the USPHS. Of the 200 students who graduated by the end of 2003, 58% were from the Air Force, 26% were from the Army, and 9% were from the Navy. An additional 7% were from the USPHS. Fifty-five percent of the graduates were women, predominantly enrolled in the FNP program, whereas the majority of graduates from the CRNA program were men.

Scholarly Projects

Beginning with the first graduates in 1995 through the graduating class of 2000, all GSN students were required to complete a research project, called a scholarly project, in the style and format of the traditional master's thesis. Students conducted their projects after completion of a two-semester research course during the first year of the MSN program. The culmination of the research course was the preparation of a proposal for the project that was evaluated and approved by the students' faculty advisory committees, as well as evaluation and approval by appropriate Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) and the Dean of the GSN.

Guided by the faculty committee, called the thesis committee, students conducted their projects as a solo endeavor in strict accordance with a manual that dictated the procedures to be followed for each step of the thesis process. After completion of the research, students defended their results in a final, detailed report to the faculty committee.

Beginning with the entering class of 2001, in line with trends in graduate nursing programs throughout the nation, the scholarly project process at the GSN was revised to allow students various options in addition to the individually conducted thesis. The process is now as follows: In the first year of the research courses, each student prepares a research proposal using the USPHS Form 398, the well-known "Application for a PHS Grant." After the proposal is approved by the faculty committee, the GSN Dean, and the IRB, the student conducts the project, which may culminate in a traditional thesis or in a report prepared as an article for publication in a professional journal. Furthermore, students can conduct projects individually, as was done when the only type of scholarly project permitted was a thesis, or the project may be carried out by a team of several students. These changes and the emphasis on publishing results of scholarly projects in professional journals and on presenting them at professional meetings will undoubtedly increase the communication of findings from the students' research.

Analysis of Completed Scholarly Projects

When the scholarly project process began to come under review during the summer of 1999, a computerized database of completed theses was created. The Thesis Database, as it is called, contains data on various characteristics of the students' research, including theoretical framework, research design, sample subjects, research methodology, and statistical tools used. Because the scholarly projects process has been significantly revised, the writers of this article decided to aggregate the data contained in the database to obtain a description of the 150 projects completed under the original scholarly projects program. In addition to the data in the Thesis Database, we decided to classify the students' projects according to two new descriptors, "research priorities" and "research areas." These descriptors have been developed to categorize projects receiving grant support from the TSNRP.

This article contains the results of the analysis of the 150 scholarly projects completed by GSN students from 1995 through 2002. The analysis serves several useful purposes: It provides an historical documentation of the military nursing research conducted by students during the early days of the GSN, and it offers a useful source of information to future military nurse researchers on research topics, methodologies, and findings from successfully completed research.

Of the 150 reports in the Thesis Database, 143 are theses reports and 7 are research articles by students in a program called the MSN Completion Program. This program was offered briefly by the GSN to students with graduate nursing degrees other than the MSN who needed the MSN to meet certification requirements as CRNAs or FNPs. The "completion" students were offered the option of preparing a paper rather than a thesis report because they had already completed theses for their previous graduate nursing degrees.