Achievements and new challenges in Nursing Science

EDITORIAL

Achievements and new challenges in Nursing Science

Ivone Evangelista Cabral^I

^IAssociate Professor of the Department of Maternal and Child Nursing at Anna Nery School of Nursing, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Researcher with CNPq. President of the Brazilian Nursing Association-ABEn, Administration 2010-2013. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil. [e-mail]

Between 2007 and 2009, scientific production in nursing in Brazil, registered by the 35 graduate programs in the CAPES⁽¹⁾ evaluation system, corresponded to 5,194 articles published in 595 journals. There was a total 7,173 authorships, 88.1% of which referred to journals and 11.9% to books and book chapters. In the triennium, 1,517 masters theses and 377 doctoral dissertations were presented. These numbers advise us of the need to problematize the social use of nursing knowledge and the commitment towards changing it into the well-being of people, groups and collectivities.

As for scientific dissemination, the Forum of Nursing Journal Editors of the Brazilian Nursing Association (ABEn), as of its establishment in the 1990’s, has contributed to improving the quality of journals. In 2010, four of the 112 international journals on the Web of Science edited in Brazil were nursing journals: Revista Latino-Americana de Enfermagem, Revista da Escola de Enfermagem da USP, Acta Paulista de Enfermagem and Texto & Contexto-Enfermagem. In 2009, the international visibility of nursing science production in Brazil ranked sixth with SCIMAGO⁽²⁾.

If nursing in Brazil has achieved such respectable levels in knowledge production and dissemination, there is still a great challenge for Brazilian researchers and Nursing Science in terms of the visibility of the consumed knowledge, which is measured by the citation index. According to SCIMAGO⁽²⁾, in 2009, only 0.55 citations were registered per document. There is a need for a marketing culture of the published articles, so they can be organically disseminated in the development of new knowledge, and become public and nursing care policies.

Today, moving from knowledge production/dissemination to knowledge use and transference is an ethical and citizen duty of Nursing researchers towards their subjects of Care – people, groups and/or collectivities. The numbers reported above circumscribe scientific production to the academic sphere. The produced knowledge remains far from health care services and social life, thus having a small effect on the creation of public health policies⁽³⁾. Nursing entities and similar organizations must persist on providing encouragement to overcome old challenges and create new meanings for nursing research. Topics in research reports should present more than simply the study contributions/implications. It is necessary to reach consensus in practice, based on research results or producing evidence that can contribute to making changes in health care models, processes, and institutional policies.

The Brazilian Nursing Association (ABEn) has initiated, in the political and scientific area of the 15^th SENPE in 2009, a debate articulating the interfaces of knowledge, care and citizenship towards the benefit of human beings⁽⁴⁾. At that event, over one thousand Brazilian researchers from many different institutions analyzed the social role of nursing research beyond those of science production, use, dissemination and diffusion, as well as the translation and transference of knowledge from producing centers to the social and health fields.

It is expected that at the 16^th SENPE, which will take place this year from June 19 to 22 in Campo Grande (MS), participants will be provided with the logistic, dialogic and epistemological opportunity to debate the interfaces of Nursing Science in times of interdisciplinarity, with the view to benefit the life cycles of citizens; promote interchange across institutions and the socialization of knowledge produced by nursing research institutions and researchers; reflect on the limitations and the possibilities of producing nursing knowledge, and its contribution for developing a care and education practice that is sociocultural, interdisciplinary and cross-cultural; to discuss on the interdisciplinarity of knowledge production and the statute of nursing science in the 21^st century; to discuss on the implications of nursing science on the formulation of public (social and health) care policies (in health and nursing), of developing researchers and research networks.

For those who have already enrolled for the 16^th SENPE, we would like to welcome you all! Please expose your published articles, generate consensus on research results, announce new possibilities of health care, and form research and researchers networks to generate new knowledge, and thus provide feedback to the existence of nursing as science.

REFERENCES

• ¹
  Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES). Relatório de Avaliação Enfermagem [Internet]. Brasília; 2010 [citado 2011 mar. 31]. Disponível em: http://trienal.capes.gov.br/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/ENFERMAGEM-RELATÓRIO-DE-AVALIAÇÃO-FINAL-dez10.pdf
• 2. SCImago Journal Country Rank (SJR). Country Ranks [Internet]. 2009 [cited 2011 Mar 31]. Available from: http://www.scimagojr.com/countryrank.php?area=2900&category=0®ion=all&year=2009&order=it&min=0&min_type=it
• 3. Cabral IE, Tyrrel MAR. Pesquisa em enfermagem nas Américas. Rev Bras Enferm [Internet]. 2010 [citado 2011 mar. 31];63(1):104-10. Disponível em: http://www.scielo.br/pdf/reben/v63n1/v63n1a17.pdf
• 4. Cabral IE. 15º SENPE: espaço político e científico para debater "Enfermagem: conhecimento, cuidado e cidadania" no Rio de Janeiro [editorial]. Rev Bras Enferm [Internet]. 2009 [citado 2011 mar. 31];62(2):3. Disponível em: http://www.scielo.br/pdf/reben/v62n2/a01v62n2.pdf

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  22 June 2011
• Date of issue
  June 2011