An Analysis Of Nursing Postgraduate Theses In China

Purposes: To describe the research current situations of nursing theses from 1995to 2005 in China and analyze the current focus and predict the trends in the future.Method: This study had used content analysis to study nursing postgraduate thesesabout their themes, the objects location of data collection, the sampling method,estimations of sample size, the framework researched, the type designed, method of datacollection, reliability and validity of the research tool, type of data, kind of research,statistics methodology, quality control, citation analysis, limitation, suggestion, thereason of research and funding source.Results: A total of 254 theses were analyzed. The most popular topics were clinicalnursing research(46%) and nursing education research(18%).The objects researchedwere mainly client(53%).The hospitals(58.3%) and schools(12.6%) were the mainlocation of data collection. 59.8% theses were accidental samplings. About 60% thesesdid not explain estimations of sample sizes, but which had decreased gradually by year.Only 20% had theoretical framework or conceptual framework, but which had increasedgradually by year. Non-experimental studies(65%) were mostly used. The tools weremainly questionnaires(69.7%) and about 69% had tested the reliability and validity. Thecombination of quantitative data with counting data(79%) were often used. Thepercentage of quantitative research were 99.2%. Most theses combined statisticaldescription with statistical inference. About 80.3% theses had quality control and whichhad increased gradually by year. About 59% theses had pointed out the limitation. Themost reasons of research were innovation. About 56% theses gave their suggestionsand/or the further research suggestion. Only 8.3% theses had funding source. Theaverage citation number was big(66 pieces).The citation types were mainlyjournals(81%). English was mostly used (54%) in the citation. The Price Index was nothigh (42%). The citation formats of 12.2% theses were nonstandard.Conclusions: The most prevalent topics of nursing postgraduate theses are aboutnursing problems which exist and need resolve. Their researched designs have more scientific comparing with that of journal, however there are still several weaknessesamong some theses. With the improvement of nursing education the topics of thesesbecome deeper and wider, and researched design become more precise and morevarious.