Development of Framework for Clinical Nursing Research Fellowship in the Philippines

Abstract

Fellowship programs serve as alternative means to bridge the gap between undergraduate education and nursing practice. The purpose of the study was to develop a framework for a Clinical Nursing Research (CNR) Fellowship Program in the Philippines. A sequential non-dominant mixed method design was used. It comprised the following: identifying the competencies needed by clinical nurses in research and EBP; the training needs of clinical nurses in research and EBP; the core competencies, functional competencies and tasks of CNR fellows; and describing potential fellows’ reactions and preferred ways of learning. Categorical analyses were done to analyze qualitative data. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze training needs and consensus agreement of experts. There were nine core competencies and 70 tasks of a CNR fellow that were distributed to the Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced Levels. Potential fellows prefer learning that is active, reflective, sequential, cooperative, guided by experts, personalized and involves use of technology. After learning the basics, they would need to learn more intensively on competencies that would help them become more capable of contributing to clinical practice. The CNR Fellowship Program framework seemed to contain contextually-relevant core competencies in clinical nursing research that are needed to augment basic nursing research education and to benefit clinical nursing practice.