Research Conversation— Esther Sangster-Gormley, RN, PhD

Using case study research: Lessons learned by a novice researcher

The nurse practitioner role continues to be implemented across Canada. British Columbia was one of the last provinces to implement it, and there was no previous study of role implementation in the British Columbian context. Therefore, a study using case study research methodology was undertaken to explain the process of nurse practitioner role implementation. Although case study research is being used more frequently by nurse researchers, literature indicates that concise explanations of how to use the methodology are lacking. During this presentation I provided a description of how I used an explanatory, single case study with embedded units of analysis, adhering to Yin’s approach to explain the process of nurse practitioner role implementation.

From the 2012 Winter Communiqué