Commentary Nursing Research and Nurses’ Work Marlene Zichi Cohen, RN, PhD According to the Oxford English Dictionary, commen- tary is defined as a series of comments on a text, and the word comment comes from the Latin commenturn which means invention, contrivance, or interpretation. Interpretations are something I am familiar with: the word hermeneutics comes from the Greek work mean- ing to interpret. Hermeneutic phenomenology involves close reading of a text to find recurrent themes in the work, and parallels between the text and ideas or events outside the text. The following are several themes that occurred to me on reading these preceding articles by Olson et al and Clarke-Steffen. Priorities in Nursing Research Although you will be reading this in January, I am writing as Labor Day and the beginning of a new school year approach. My desk holds the thought-provoking articles by Olson et al and Clarke-Steffen along with a research textbook to which I will soon be introducing students. One of the first topics I will discuss with my students is the goal of nursing research and research priorities that have been set by various groups. Many would argue that research in nursing is primarily needed to improve patient care. Some would say that improving care is our only purpose because we are a practice discipline. I agree with these views and would argue that research about nurses and how to support nurses is central to this purpose of improving patient care. Peplau,’ whose theory was first published in 1952, was among the first to argue that nurses cannot meet others’ needs if their own needs are not met. Nursing is a complex profession, and consequently what we study is equally complex. These articles report the results of research that asked nurses about their work experiences. It was clear that their professional work affected their lives. Our research with oncology nurses who work with adult patients has also shown that From the Department of Acute and Long-Term Care, School of Nursing, University of Maryland, Balti- more, MD. Address reprint requests to Marlene Zichi Cohen, RN, PhD, Department of Acute and Long-Term Care, School of Nursina. 515 W Lombard St, Room 377. Baltimore, /%D212OJ-i597. o 1998 by Association ofpediatric Oncology Nurses. 1043-4542/98/l 501.0005$3.00/O life experiences affect work, how work is perceived, understood, and lived. Life experiences shaped what nurses thought was important to focus on with patients and what interventions they believed were needed.2 Understanding nurses’ experiences is important in nurs- ing research because of the effect these experiences have on care delivered, and on the persons who receive this nursing care. This research led me to think about the appropriate boundaries of research in nursing. Nurses’ work and the role of life experiences are important. Our research asked nurses to describe a “critical incident,” something that captured the essence of oncology nursing. It was striking that these nurses were most often very isolated in the examples they related (ie, the examples did not involve being dependent on other nurses).3 The nurses in our research, just like the nurses in the research reported in the previous articles, related examples of confronting pain, suffering, and death. The difficult work of giving care would clearly benefit from supportive resources for nurses. Beyond Oncology: The Essence of Nursing The report by Olson et al contained results that were similar to results we obtained in a study of nurses caring for surgical patients, only some of whom had cancer4 Accountability was a key component in these nurses’ descriptions of caring for surgical patients. Knowledge and presence were major sub-themes in these descrip- tions of responsibility. The results reported in these two articles about the pediatric oncology nurses also seemed to fit this conceptualization. The surgical nurses described categories within these sub-themes. Within the sub-theme of knowledge were the categories of lacking knowledge, possessing profes- sional or nursing knowledge, teaching or providing information, and knowing about what was needed to provide leadership in patient care. The categories within the sub-theme of presence included environmental bar- riers and interactions with patients. The study referred to above involved interviews with nurses and patients. Knowledge and presence were also central in patients’ descriptions of the experience of having surgery and what they expected from nurses. While the sub-themes were the same, patients empha- sized different categories within these two sub-themes. Patients emphasized the importance of being taught and obtaining information, but unlike nurses, focused on individualized knowledge, and how the information re- lated to their personal needs. When they described presence, patients more than nurses described the atten- 34 Journal ofpediatric Oncology Nursing, Vol 15, No I (Januar-y), 1998: pp 34-36