Detroit Medical Center
Nursing Research Council

 A research proposal is your plan
 It describes in detail your study
 Decisions about your study are based on the quality of the proposal
 Research funding
 Approvals to proceed by the Nursing
Research Council, the DMC, and the WSU
Institutional Review Board

 Background/clinical significance
 Research Question/Aim/Purpose
 Methods
 Design
 Sample/Sample Size
 Setting
 Protocol
 Analysis plan
 Timeline

 Why is your study important?
 Describe the clinical significance of the research question or clinical problem
 Answer the “so what?” question

 What is the state of the science on this problem? Are there gaps in the literature? How will your study fill those gaps?
 Synthesize recent literature (within the past 5 years)

 Identify simply what you plan to do in your study
 The purpose can be framed as a research question or an aim
 Examples:
 What is the impact of meditative music on agitation in hospitalized elders?
 The purpose of this study is to show the impact of meditative music on agitated elders.

 This section of your proposal has multiple parts
 Design
 Sample/Sample size
 Setting
 Protocol
 Analysis Plan
 Detailed enough so that the reviewers could conduct the study

 Describe your study design
 Design examples
 Prospective vs. Retrospective
 Descriptive
 Observation
 Intervention clinical trial
 Surveys, interviews, questionnaires
 Focus groups, field studies
 Others
 Example
 We plan a prospective randomized controlled trial of meditative music vs. no music

 Who are the study participants?
 Describe inclusion criteria
 Example: Adult men and women inpatients with stage IV heart disease
 Who is excluded?
 Example: Patients who do not speak
English

 How will participants be recruited?
 Convenience sample of nurses or patients
 Flyers in clinics or waiting rooms
 Advertisements
 Electronic Records search
 How many participants are needed?
 How will you justify the sample size?
 Has there been a power analysis?
 Do you have a comparison or control group?

 Describe the units or clinics at DMC sites where you plan to conduct the study
 Do you have support from the clinic or unit to conduct the study?
 Letters of support from site or unit

 What are you going to do to study participants?
 Detailed, step by step explanation
 Include how you will identify participants, obtain consent, and collect data
 If there is an intervention, describe it in detail
 Will you use measurement tools? Describe the tools, including reliability and validity and include a copy of the tools with your proposal
 Include the time frame for implementing the study

 Describe your analysis plan
 What statistical tests will you use?
 Be sure your statistics are appropriate for your study design

 Describe how long it will take to do your study
 Provide timeline benchmarks
 Example:
 Months 1 – 3 Prepare study tools
 Months 4-10 Collect data
 Months 11-12 Analyze data

 Missing aims or purpose
 Not enough detail about protocol
 Write your proposal so anyone reading it can understand your plan
 Is your study significant?
 Does it answer the larger “So what” question? Why should nurses care about this work?
 Underpowered sample size
 Describe why you are using the sample size and justify it
 Invalid or unreliable instrumentation
 Has your instrument been tested with the population you are studying? If not, will you test it within your study?
 Improper statistics
 Are you using the appropriate statistical analysis?

The NRC will evaluate your proposal based on specific criteria defined by the Wayne
State IRB
 The research design must be sound enough to yield the expected knowledge
 The aims/objectives are likely to be achievable in the given time period
 The rationale for the proposed number of participants is reasonable
 The scientific design is described and adequately justified

Each DMC hospital has a Nursing
Research Council representative.
Contact them before you submit your proposal if you have questions.
http://intraweb/default.aspx?ifsrc=co ntent.aspx?id=548

Mateo, M.A.; & Kirchoff, K.T. (1999). Using and Conducting Nursing
Research in the Clinical Setting. Philadelphia, PA: WB Saunders
Company.
Polit, D.F.; & Beck C.T. (2010). Nursing Research Principles and
Methods. Philadelphia, PA: Lipincott.