Designing nursing interventions

The development of nursing interventions that demonstrate the link between nursing actions and patient outcomes is a high priority for nursing research. The development of intervention research frequently focuses on the methods used to test the intervention while less attention is placed on rigor in intervention development and design. The purpose of this paper is to provide thinking points for researchers considering the development of nursing interventions. The thinking points were developed from the limited literature on this topic in synthesis with the authors own experiences of designing nursing interventions. Adoption of a systematic approach to intervention testing is advocated along with a step-wise intervention development process. This process calls for attention to problem definition, conceptual underpinnings, desired outcomes and measures and evidence-based content along with careful consideration of delivery methods, dose and attention to protecting the integrity of the intervention during testing. The approach advocated will help to ensure that nursing intervention research makes a useful contribution to the development of nursing practice.