The Roots of Nursing Research
Nursing research began when Florence Nightingale accumulated and analyzed complex information about conditions during the Crimean War (1854-56). Although her work illustrated the power of statistics to reform nursing, her insistence that nurses undertake systematic inquiry was ignored by late 19th century training school administrators. Nursing superintendents discovered that the demands of maintaining an efficient nursing service left little time for sustained investigation and inquiry. And in an educational setting emphasizing obedience and rigid discipline, nursing students were not encouraged to question or analyze.