Toward Transformative Engagement: Ethical and Effective Clinical-Research Partnerships in Cancer Care Nursing

Background: Clinical nurses have the potential to conduct impactful practice-focused research, enhancing institutional research cultures and improving patient outcomes. However, collaboration between clinical nurses and academic nurse scientists can be challenging and resource intensive. Objective: Describe how transformative clinical-research partnership facilitates achieving mutual goals for clinical nurses and academic nurse scientists. Methods: The Virtual Supportive Cancer Care Research (ViSuCaRe) Study, a multisite, mixed-method study, was conducted through a clinical-research partnership to explore the experience of patients and clinicians engaging in supportive cancer care via telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: We describe research and quality improvement products and identify how the ViSuCaRe Study addressed three common challenges to clinical-research partnerships. (1) Study conception, construction, and development prioritized frontline clinical staff involvement; (2) Data collection and analysis engaged clinical partners in recruitment, interviewing, data management, coding, and theory-building; (3) Subsequent analyses, products, and dissemination efforts emerged from evolving needs of clinical partners and shifted in accordance with their arising priorities. Conclusions: Using an approach to collaboration centered on transformative engagement offers clinical nurses and academic nurse scientists. Implications for Practice: Frontline clinical staff should have consistent and meaningful roles in developmental, analytic, and dissemination-directing processes. Supporting clinical nurses’ engagement in research activities will enable them to identify and address problems that impact practice, enhance research cultures, and promote evidence-based practice. Foundational: Using a model of transformative engagement, rooted in community engagement, allows nurses to carry out collaborative practice-focused research. Clinical-academic partnerships offer an economical approach to enhancing clinical nurses’ research capacities.