摘要：

Background. Action research is ideal for the development of health care practice but bibliometric analysis of educationally-based studies suggests poor support fromacademia. This study therefore reviewed published action research studies to gaininsight into the level of uptake and designs of practice-based action research.Methods. A systematic review of papers from 2000-2005 in CINAHL, MEDLINE and British Nursing Index, using `action research `(title and abstract), `nursing' (title andabstract) and `UK' (whole document). Filtering reduced the sample to 62 primaryaction research papers, which were scrutinised for study location, setting, authorship, methods of data collection, participants/nature of participation, and funding source. A supplementary search replaced `action research ' with alternative methodologies toguage the level of uptake in comparison with the wider picture.Findings. 93% of studies were in the statutory sector, mainly involving`organisational/professional development', or `educational' settings. 27% of paperswere single-authored; overall 70% of first (`lead') authors were from an academicinstitution. However, practitioners were the main participants in 90% of studies, and 72% of all participant groups were `active' in the research process. 90% of studiesemployed 2 or more methods, predominantly questionnaires, interviews,focus groups and observation, but with some appearance of innovative methods, such as creative arts and repertory grid. 44% of papers identified external funding sources, relatively high for nursing research. In comparison with other methodological approaches,35% of the overall database were action research studies.Conclusions. Practice-based research has strongly adopted action researchdesigns, using a diversity of methods, though the focus of studies reflects that ofnursing research generally, with a low application of the `clinical' setting. A high level of participation by practitioners is evident but with little equity in authoring of papers, which is dominated by academic collaborators. Service user/carer involvement was scant and should be given more prominence by action researchers.

展开