Determining nursing research priorities according to viewpoints of nurses in Bushehr City using Delphi technique

Nowadays, determining research priorities is one of the strategic approaches for research planning. Since there is no clear research policy in nursing in Iran, the present study was designed to find research priorities for nursing. In this descriptive-analytic study, the nurses in academic and clinical settings of Bushehr city participated and responded to a questionnaire in two round Delphi survey (208 persons in the first round and 174 persons in the second round). The questionnaire contained a list of research topics to be prioritized according to 9 criteria (importance of the topic, their role in changing health status of the society, availability of data, change in nursing profession, potentiality to collaborate with other research centers, focus on social needs, protective principles and instructions, economical justification, possibility of applying achieved results). Its scoring scale was based on three options (high, good, low) and an open question. The research topics which received the highest ranking scores were: 1) Nursing and education, 2) Nursing and client education, 3) Nursing status in health system, 4) Nursing and medication therapy, 5) Nursing management and quality promotion, 6) Nursing and care, 7) Nursing and crisis (disasters), 8) Nursing and research, 9) occupational hazards, 10) Role of nurse in society health promotion. Delphi technique is a useful method for determining nursing research priorities. Through this method, topics related to nursing education and nursing status in health system were found to be of the highest level of priority in nursing.