The State of Nursing Research in Ghana: An Integrative Literature Review

INTRODUCTION: For nursing practice to be responsive to the needs of patients, it must be driven by contextual research evidence. To guide institutional and national nursing research policy, there is need to determine the quantity and quality of nursing research in Ghana. PURPOSE: The purpose of this integrative literature review was to quantify, critically evaluate, and describe nursing research publication in Ghana from January 2007 to December 2016 with regard to the country's research capacity to sustain evidence-based practice. RESULTS: Sixty (60) out of 749 articles identified from EBSCOhost, ProQuest, PubMed, Science Direct, Scopus, Wiley Online Library, and Google Scholar using three keywords (nursing, health, and Ghana) were included. A total of 60,778 human subjects were used in these studies. There were more quantitative (28) studies than qualitative (23) studies. These studies recorded 219 authors from 120 institutions, 55 of which were outside Ghana. Forty-five percent of the articles were published in journals with impact factor. There was a steady increase in publication in Ghana over the decade. A majority of the studies published in education were in curriculum implementation and evaluation. CONCLUSIONS: The increasing number of peer-reviewed nursing research publications in Ghana and the curriculum implementation and evaluation in Ghana signified an increasing capacity of the country to implement and sustain evidence-based practice. RECOMMENDATIONS: It is recommended that regular research be conducted to evaluate the responsiveness to old and new nursing programs in Ghana.