Research Methods for Nurses and Midwives: Theory and Practice

This book walks you step-by-step through the whole research process so you can get up to speed understanding and doing your own research.

In their friendly, down to earth style, the authors lay the theoretical foundations you need to consume and critique research, before showing how to translate this into action when tackling your own literature review or research project.

This second edition:

• Draws on a wealth of examples from midwifery, four fields of nursing including mental health nursing and child nursing, and a range of health care specialities.
• Covers new and updated NMC professional education standards and maps all relevant policy and law.
• Supports your learning with reflective exercises, online activities and quizzes that enable you to be confident in your understanding and develop your thinking. 

Whether you’re encountering research and evidence-based practice for the first time or refreshing your methods knowledge, this is the ideal research companion for nurses and midwives pre-registration, post-registration and beyond.

Merryl Harvey qualified as a nurse in 1982. After qualifying as a midwife in 1984, her area of practice was neonatal intensive care. Merryl’s clinical career culminated in her working as a clinical teacher and this in turn led her to take up a post at Birmingham City University. Initially this was to run the post-registration neonatal intensive care course.

In more recent years Merryl has been seconded to work on a number of large-scale, funded research projects which have focused on aspects of parenting and preterm birth. She secured the Bliss Research Fellow post based at the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit (2004–2007). Her MSc explored aspects of the neonatal nurse practitioner role and her PhD explored fathers’ experiences of the birth and immediate care of their baby.

Merryl has a strong journal publication history and has co-authored a text on fatherhood in relation to midwifery and neonatal practice (2012). Her co-authored text ‘Achieving Your Doctorate while Working in Higher Education’ is due to be published by Sage in 2021.  Merryl became Professor of Nursing and Family Health at Birmingham City University in 2017.

Before her retirement in 2019, Merryl was co-lead of the Family Health Research Cluster and co-lead of the Elizabeth Bryan Multiple Births Centre.

Lucy Land qualified as a nurse in 1980 and worked in haematology, caring for patients with leukaemia, sickle cell anaemia and other blood disorders. Eventually specialising in haemophilia, Lucy was one of the first clinical nurse specialists, supporting a regional outpatient and home treatment service.

Following this successful career in practice, she became a clinical nurse teacher and later qualified as a registered nurse tutor. After moving into Birmingham City University, Lucy continued to teach and to undertake funded research projects which focussed on patient experience and completing several studies on this subject. In addition to a substantial history of journal publications, Lucy was co-author of an earlier Sage publication – Resources for Nursing Research: An Annotated Bibliography.

After retiring from her role as professor of nursing and Director of the Centre for Social Care, Health and Related Research (C-SHaRR), Lucy maintained a keen interest patient care and worked in the voluntary sector to promote patient advocacy and inclusion.