Veterinary nursing research: types, importance and dissemination
Abstract
As with other practice-based professions, research is vitally important to the field of veterinary nursing. Professions have a responsibility to provide high-quality services that are beneficial to their clients, whether human or animal, based on systematic and ongoing research, providing evidence-based principles. Even though veterinary nurses work as members of a healthcare team, there are areas of their professional practice that are exclusively their domain, which warrant scientific investigation. Veterinary nursing research will not only assist veterinary patients and clients through improving nursing practices, but will also advance the development of veterinary nursing as a profession. Generating a unique body of knowledge is one of the criteria by which a profession is defined. This article examines what is research in veterinary nursing, why research is important to veterinary nursing professional practice and how scientific research can promote the development of the veterinary nursing profession.
With the rapid rise in the standards of veterinary practice driven by advances in technology, a knowledge explosion and the increasing expectations of clients, veterinary nurses, like other professionals, require a higher level of knowledge and clinical expertise to practise (Abu-Saad, 1993; Brown and Silverman, 1999). This philosophy is supported in the professional literature, such as the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons’ Guide to Professional Conduct for Veterinary Nurses (Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, 2010) and the new draft code (Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, 2011). Both rep-ports advocate that veterinary nurses must ‘maintain and continue to develop professional knowledge and skills’ (Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, 2010: 5) by undertaking a minimum of 45 hours of continuing professional development (CPD) over 3 years to satisfy regulatory requirements. As such, CPD is an essential element of the veterinary nurse's professionalism, representing their commitment to excellence in the field and lifelong learning (Hilton, 2004). This commitment to excellence and currency of competency needs to be based on a body of knowledge developed through veterinary nursing research, as veterinary nurses require evidence to underpin what they are doing in caring for patients and their owners.
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