Nursing Research explores the roots, potential, value and current status of nursing research in the UK and examines how it can be used to determine policy and practice in health care. Written by nurses, midwives and health visitors, this text explores how practice through research generates new knowledge, and demonstrates how its methods and findings can be applied to the analysis and evaluation of practice. It also questions the nature of 'evidence', asking who sets research agendas, whose interests are served and what are the ethical issues involved? In the current climate of market competition and contracts for the delivery of health care, nursing research seems set to become increasingly important and this text serves as a timely addition to the existing literature on the subject.