title: Nursing evaluation: purposes, achievements and opportunities.
abstract: Evaluation has become a powerful, specialized discipline in recent decades, with its own sophisticated conceptual and technical apparatus. Evaluation of nursing has benefited strongly from these developments, as examples of cogent, recent evaluations demonstrate. Evaluation is already proving an indispensable practical tool for raising the quality of health care, and for advancing professional nursing standards. Nonetheless, there is room for further improvement. Neglected areas of nursing should be brought under the spotlight of evaluation, conceptual and methodological rigour should be strengthened, and training in research skills should be extended.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health and Paramedical Studies, West London Institute of Higher Education, Isleworth, Middlesex, U.K.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Marsland
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gissane
mesh_terms: D002985:Clinical Protocols / Q000592:standards; D005544:Forecasting; D006801:Humans; D015403:Nursing Evaluation Research / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards* / Q000639:trends; D009937:Organizational Objectives; D014944:World Health Organization