Research Literacy and Research Engagement Following Project-Embedded Support Among Clinical Nurses: An Exploratory Nonrandomised Controlled Study.

AIM: To explore whether sustained, multicomponent, project-embedded support was associated with changes in clinical nurses' research literacy, research translation capability and research engagement.

BACKGROUND

One-off research training may improve knowledge but often provides limited support for moving clinical questions into sustained research action.

METHODS

An exploratory nonrandomised controlled pretest-posttest study was conducted in a tertiary teaching hospital in eastern China. Forty-four nurses were analysed (intervention n = 19; concurrent comparison n = 25). The intervention combined structured research activities, an ongoing research clinic, project tracking and individualised support. The four core outcomes were functional research literacy, interactive research literacy, critical research literacy and research translation capability. Theory-informed secondary outcomes related to research opportunity, motivation and behaviour were also assessed and objective project progression was described. Baseline-adjusted analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used as the main adjusted analysis, with a sensitivity model additionally adjusting for postgraduate education and senior professional title.

RESULTS

Interactive research literacy was the only core outcome with a significant unadjusted time × group interaction. In baseline-adjusted ANCOVA, all four core outcomes favoured the intervention after false discovery rate correction; after additional adjustment, only interactive research literacy remained statistically significant (adjusted difference 0.348, 95% CI 0.113-0.584; p = 0.005). Objective project milestones were observed in the intervention group but were not available for between-group comparison.

CONCLUSIONS

Project-embedded support was associated most consistently with interactive research literacy. Findings for the other core domains were less robust after additional covariate adjustment. Given the nonrandom allocation, small sample and preliminary outcome measure, the findings should be interpreted as exploratory.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Nurse managers may consider longitudinal structures that connect research learning with real clinical projects, repeated dialogue, methodological support and project follow-up, while evaluating such programmes with longer follow-up and stronger comparative designs.