This study—conducted by a team of researchers from across Canada—is an assessment of a research protocol that led to hard-hitting policy recommendations related to public health nursing practice for provincial and federal leaders. In this study-of-a-study, the authors evaluated the effectiveness of two group process methods (appreciative inquiry and nominal group process) used to generate experience-based policy recommendations. The methods were used in 23 focus groups with public health nurses, managers, and policy makers from rural and urban settings across Canada.
This paper describes the impact of using appreciative inquiry methods to collect data, rather than the traditional problem orientation methods used in most social research. In the appreciative inquiry groups, participants were asked to identify characteristics of organizations that best support public health nursing. In the data analysis stage of the research, focus groups used nominal group technique to analyse the data and formulate policy recommendations. The participatory research methods were considered to be enormously successful: 93% of participants responded to a post-focus group survey, and the processes led to solution-focussed results that are now being addressed by policy makers. The authors theorize that “success” is partly due to the “philosophical congruence” between public health nursing practice and these strength-based, group decision-making processes.
Use this article to:
- Rekindle your sense of mission as a public health nurse, manager, or policy maker
- Learn about the appreciative inquiry and nominal group technique approaches and how they can be used for research and policy-making purposes
- Learn how these focus group techniques can help communities anywhere develop policy recommendations
Knibbs, K., Underwood, J., MacDonald, M., Schoenfeld, B., Lavoie-Tremblay, M., Crea-Arsenio, M. …. Ehrlich A. (2010). Appreciative inquiry: a strength-based research approach to building Canadian public health nursing capacity. Journal of Research in Nursing. doi: 10.1177/1744987110387472.