How to Write a Nursing Research Paper Proposal

What Is a Research Proposal?

A research proposal is a written plan or account of a study designed to achieve particular goals. Unlike a case study, research paper, or thesis, a proposal is crafted before the project begins. In fact, the fate of the study can be decided based on the quality of the proposal, especially if your goal is to secure funding, get access to human subjects, or get your academic advisor’s approval in postgraduate school. 

What’s Different About a Research Proposal in Nursing?

Few majors outside the healthcare track deal with human subjects and related ethical and human rights issues. Therefore, a nursing research proposal must include these considerations and provide sufficient proof that the subjects of the study will not suffer harm due to their participation. Ethical issues are especially critical if the research subjects are confused, unconscious, or otherwise vulnerable.  

Institutional considerations are also a factor for nursing proposals, as hospitals, clinics, and care facilities must be convinced their patients, staff, and reputation will not encounter risks if the administration agrees to your proposal.

How to Write a Research Proposal For Nursing

We won’t go into the mechanics of the writing process. Instead, let’s highlight a few characteristics a research proposal should possess:

1. Logical flow. Each following section should be connected and derivative of the previous ones. There should be no leaps of intuition or sidetracks necessary to understand the proposal’s contents.
2. Right depth. It’s defined by the requirements of the Nursing school or granting institution. The prompt usually lists the maximum word count with acceptable deviations, and you need to meet these requirements for your proposal to be considered. 
3. Highlighted critical points. To make your proposal easier to digest, underline or use bold font to emphasize the problem statement, research objectives, methodology, study goals, hypothesis, and other critical components. If you can’t tell which parts are critical, highlight the same points you include in the abstract.
4. Perfect formatting. First impressions are impossible to ignore, and anyone laying eyes on your proposal should be faced with the right font size, margins, indents, etc. Even if it doesn’t seem important to you, making your paper look presentable is key, whether you’re working on a thesis or a grant proposal.

How to Start a Research Proposal

Any study starts with a question or problem statement, and that’s what you need to figure out first. It’s similar to a thesis statement in an essay and can take on the form of a statement or a question. Either way, it should be precise and carefully worded to avoid ambiguity and misunderstanding. At the same time, your problem statement should be free of hypotheses and assumptions.

Ideally, the nursing research proposal ideas should fall within the field of your scientific interests or your career goals. For example, if you’re going to work in a pediatric ward, you can research the effects of cesarean section on the physical development of babies within the first three months of birth.  

Nursing Research Proposal Outline

Title

Use the technique the best journalists rely on and come up with a dozen alternative titles. This process will help you refine the name of your study until it reflects the research question or the goals of your study. Try to keep it concise without making the title incomprehensible.

You can use a traditional APA cover page layout or ask your professor for a template. In some cases, you may need to include extra information beyond the study title and your name and school. If you're writing a research proposal for a grant, you may be required to add contact information to the title page.

Abstract

The abstract is a one-page (200 to 250 words) summary of your proposal. Therefore, it should include the highlights of each section. Squeeze your literature review, study objective, and research methodology each into a few sentences. The reader should get a clear picture of your study from the abstract alone. Leave this part for last if you’re unsure how to begin writing it.

The abstract should include key information like research objectives and justification based on the literature review. Your propose should also briefly cover the research methodology, outcomes, and significance of the study. Finish the abstract with a list of keywords.

Literature Review

The first section should provide context or background information for the reader, synthesizing the knowledge you gained from credible and reliable sources. You need to summarize the existing knowledge about the problem and highlight the gaps or contradictions your study can help resolve. In a short proposal, the background section should be around two pages long. 

Based on your previous study of relevant sources, make a strong argument for the importance of your study. Instead of summarizing reference data, narrow down the background info into the focus of your study and provide a strong justification. Explain why your study is important and necessary. A gap in knowledge, outdated research, and methodological issues are among the most common research justifications. 

Aims and Objectives

The literature review should logically lead the reader to the overarching aims of the study and a concise explanation of what you hope to accomplish. From there, you should further elaborate on the individual research objectives. Each one should be specific and quantifiable, so you can easily demonstrate when the objectives are met.

Study Objectives

This small subsection should list the goals of your study. What are you hoping to achieve by the end of your research? Usually, you list one overarching goal and several smaller objectives. Remember to keep them achievable and measurable; otherwise, you may not be able to fulfill your goals or prove your accomplishments. Check out our detailed posts detailing research goals and browse sample nursing research questions for inspiration. 

Methodology

One of the most challenging chapters of research papers and proposals, the research methodology section should include a detailed explanation of what and how you will study. The Methodology section will be the largest in your proposal, regardless of the topic, as you will need to cover many issues, from research approach and design to sampling and sample size, data aggregation and analysis. Research setting and population, as well as standard study procedures and those you develop, should also be covered in the methodology section. In some cases, you may need to justify choosing one approach or method over the other in terms of your study.

You need to specify each qualitative or quantitative method you will use, sample size, sampling technique, standard tools in your arsenal, statistical analysis methods, software, etc. If your study includes human subjects, include an ethical consideration subsection to cover things like gaining subject consent, risk assessment, personal data protection, and liability limitations.

Expected Outcomes

In a research paper, you would provide study data and analyze it before making conclusions. However, as your research hasn't started yet, you need to list the results you expect to achieve. These don't need to be estimated numbers or statistics. Instead, specify what kinds of results you expect to achieve. Will you study lab test data or survey results? Will you include raw data, tables, or charts? 

Ethical Considerations 

If your study involves human subjects, you need to describe potential risks and explain how you plan to collect the subjects’ consent. You also need to list all applicable ethical and professional considerations, as well as the liabilities for any harm or injury incurred throughout the study. 

Significance 

Based on the expected study results, highlight the benefits of the research and demonstrate how it can resolve the initial problem. You can also suggest potential policy and protocol changes based on the study results. Consider this section your most powerful argument in favor of conducting the study in terms of the expected results.

As you only have possible results at this stage, you cannot draw any real conclusions. But you can discuss the significance of the expected outcomes. In other words, you need to explain what benefits your study will bring to the sample population, community, nursing profession, or other stakeholders. You can also highlight the potential for future research once you get the results of the current study. Finally, you may include any limitations or potential problems your research will face and how you plan on mitigating these negative factors.

References

The list of references comes last, right before appendices, if you include any. You should list all publications and online resources used and format them according to the required citation style (usually APA). Use automatic citation generators to speed up the process, but check each entry for mistakes before adding it to your proposal. 

Appendices may include tables, images, data sets, and other pieces of information that did not make it into the body of the proposal. Remember to give each appendix a letter and a name, and cite them on your contents page. As you'll notice in one example of a nursing research proposal paper below, appendices can take up the bulk of your proposal, especially if you include standard questionnaires or test tools. 

Research Proposal Template

Ideally, you should use a template provided by your nursing school, medical facility, or grant institution. But if you need a place to start, you can use this template and adapt it to fit your needs.

1. Title
2. Abstract
3. Statement of the Problem
4. Literature Review
5. Conceptual Framework

• Research Purpose
• Study Objectives
• Assumptions
• Hypothesis
• Terms Definitions

• Research Approach and Design
• Research Setting
• Population
• Sample Size and Sampling Technique
• Study Instruments Development
• Data Collection Plan
• Data Analysis Plan

Research Paper Format in Nursing

Innovation in content, not presentation, is the golden rule of writing a research proposal in Nursing. You need your work to be readable and digestible to make a good first impression. And for that, you need to follow standard formatting rules. Unless otherwise specified, use the APA formatting guide.

Whether you need the board's approval to start your research paper or wish to raise funds for your study, first impressions are crucial. And nothing makes you look more professional than a properly formatted proposal. Not only does formatting make your paper look good, but it also makes it easy to read and understand. If you're dying to make your proposal stand out, bold formatting choices are not the way to go. Innovate in your proposal's content, not its presentation. 

APA Research Proposal

Check out the latest APA formatting guidelines online before submitting your proposal. You may need to include a running head, alter your font style and size, increase the interval, or edit the page margins. Indents are as important as the lack thereof. Capitalization and other text formatting techniques can be used where appropriate.

We won't discuss the specifics of formatting your proposal according to APA guidelines. If you need a refresher, check out online resources or get a handbook in your school library. The one thing we want to highlight in this post is the in-text citation. Unlike other citation styles, APA calls for the author's name and publication date (not page number), as the source's relevance is crucial for nursing research. If you have trouble with citations, use online generators, but check every entry before pasting them into your paper.

While catching all references can be a pain, protecting yourself from unintended plagiarism and related troubles is crucial. So be careful about using quotes and reference data, and always include relevant citation info in your notes. 

Remember that APA formatting comes with in-text citation styling. You will need to include the names of authors and the year of publication in parentheses throughout the proposal and alphabetize the reference list at the end of your piece.

Research Proposal In Nursing Example

It's hard to find a good sample nursing research proposal paper online, but we've unearthed a few solid pieces to help you get into the right frame of mind.

• Registered psychiatric nurse's practice with mentally ill parents and their children/families within general adult mental health services in Ireland
• Medical students as mediators of change in tobacco use 
• People with severe mental illness and their relationship with primary care: a mixed-methods study to examine ways to improve contact and communication
• Self-directed learning readiness and life satisfaction among older adults

Depending on the circumstances and goals, a sample quantitative nursing research proposal can span between 1,500 and 25,000 words. This post won’t’ fit either, so instead, we’ll provide a couple of links for great research proposal samples:

• A Qualitative Research Study Investigating Nurses’ Perceptions and Experiences of Providing Psychological Care to Burns Patients During the Recovery Phase 
• Does Orthopaedic Pre-Assessment Clinic Prepare the Patient for Admission to Hospital?

And if you want more inspiration, make sure to check out our nursing proposal example database. 

Common Mistakes in Nursing Research Proposal Writing

Writing your first proposal is a challenge, but you can increase your chances of success if you avoid these common pitfalls:

1. Overuse of nursing jargon. Abbreviations, colloquialisms, and trendy words have no place in academic writing. Instead, use clear, standardized language that is understandable for all readers.
2. Unclear phrasing. Generalizations make your writing in the nursing field look weak and raise many questions. Use numbers, standards, statistics, etc., to make your message precise.
3. Vague research goals. If you can’t formulate a narrow enough research question, the rest of the proposal will be scattered and unfocused. Work on formulating the problem and goals before moving to the following sections.
4. Ambiguous methodology. If you use standardized methodologies, name them, but if you develop new methods, explain what makes them different and better than the preexisting ones.
5. Misuse of statistical data analysis methods. You don’t need to use every table processor function to make your research look better. Instead, focus on calculations that make sense and drive value.
6. Unspecified third-parties. If you intend on using third-party help, specify their names and positions and add your reasoning for choosing these particular people, especially if you are applying for funding that will cover their services.
7. Omission of critical information. Follow the required structure to the letter and fill out all the sections necessary. Ask for help if you don’t know how to choose the right sample size or calculate the budget. Skipping whole sections will damage your proposal greatly.

Conclusion

We hope you now have a better understanding of how to write a proposal paper for nursing research. It’s a challenging, high-stakes task that can drive experienced researchers up the wall. So it’s alright to feel stressed and overwhelmed if you’re facing proposal writing for the first time. Luckily, if you need some nursing essay writing help - you don’t have to struggle on your own when a team of professional nurse researchers is always on standby, ready to assist in outlining, drafting, editing, proofreading, and formatting the research proposal for you. All you need to do is reach out, and we’ll find the best solution for your writing troubles.