title: Collaboration: a solution to the challenge of conducting nursing research in cardiac rehabilitation.
abstract: Clinical nurse leaders such as clinical nurse consultants are required to conduct research and incorporate outcomes of this research into their every day practice. However, undertaking research presents issues for cardiac rehabilitation clinical nurse consultants because they may have competing demands, difficulty with finding replacements and may be relatively isolated from other researchers. The solution to this situation is the formation of a collaborative research team with other cardiac rehabilitation clinical nurse consultants, with the inclusion of an experienced university academic as a mentor for the cardiac rehabilitation clinical nurse consultants working in an Area Health Service encompassing both rural and metropolitan hospitals in New South Wales, Australia. The related research project aimed to evaluate and improve the clients' knowledge and practices related to the use of sublingual glyceryl trinitrate. The team's experiences and suggestions for clinical nurse Leaders are presented in this paper. Essential team characteristics include having shared motivation, good communication practices, flexibility and tolerance, an effective team size, achieving success, willingness to accept challenges and an experienced mentor. The benefits of developing a collaborative team for research led by clinical nurse consultants in cardiac rehabilitation by far outweigh the time and effort involved in the process.
authors.affiliation: The University of Technology, Sydney, City Campus Building 10, Level 7, 235-253 Jones Street, P.O. Box 123, Broadway, NSW 2007, Australia. Robyn.Gallagher@uts.edu.au
authors.forename: Robyn
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gallagher
authors.affiliation: Cardiac Rehabilitation, Manly Hospital, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Leonie
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sadler
authors.affiliation: Cardiac Rehabilitation, North Shore Cardiovascular Education Centre, Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Ann
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kirkness
authors.affiliation: Cardiac Rehabilitation, Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Health Service, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Julie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Belshaw
authors.affiliation: Cardiac Rehabilitation, Ryde Hospital, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Kellie
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Roach
authors.affiliation: Cardiac Rehabilitation, Central Coast Health, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Darrell
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Warrington
mesh_terms: D000286:Administration, Sublingual; D015400:Clinical Nursing Research / Q000458:organization & administration*; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D006331:Heart Diseases / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000451:nursing* / Q000534:rehabilitation; D006801:Humans; D009517:New South Wales; D005996:Nitroglycerin / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D009720:Nurse Clinicians / Q000458:organization & administration*; D010348:Patient Care Team / Q000458:organization & administration*; D010353:Patient Education as Topic / Q000458:organization & administration*
chemical_list: D005996:Nitroglycerin