Congruence of Nursing Research and Health Policies in Thailand: A Scoping Review

It is critical that nursing research focuses on the health needs and health policies of a country. However, it was not known to what extent the Faculty of Nursing, comprising 30 colleges with Praboromarajchanok Institute, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Public Health, had conducted research congruent with Thailand health policy. A scoping review is valuable for identifying forms of research that address health policy. We reviewed current nursing research conducted by this faculty to guide future nursing research in Thailand. The aim of this scoping review was to investigate the research seting, research design, study participants, and research topics of nursing research conducted by this faculty. We focused on the relevance of nursing research to national strategies and policies. We systematically searched for articles published from January 2019 to December 2020 using the internal research database of Praboromarajchanok Institute. We also searched for additional information using the following databases: Scopus, CINAHL, PubMed, ScienceDirect, and ThaiJO. The search yielded 804 articles. Only 6.84% of the articles were published in international peer-reviewed journals. One-third of the studies (32.71%) were conducted in the community. The most commonly used research design was a descriptive one. Almost half of the study participants (44.65%) were health personnel. The majority of included papers were not in accordance with Thailand's national strategy, Praboromarajchanok Institute's policy, or the service plans of the Ministry of Public Health, Thailand. We found a paucity of research that linked to essential policies or strategies. These findings can inspire our Faculty and other nursing schools worldwide to improve nursing research to support health policy development.