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In response to nurse’s best practice questions, Inova Loudoun Hospital nurses have the opportunity to conduct research, expand knowledge, and change nursing practice.  This presentation will describe the Nurse Research Internship Program (NRIP).  The NRIP provides women’s health, obstetric and neonatal nurses with the guidance and support by an experienced research mentor to facilitate the intern’s development, implementation and conduct of nursing research.  Interns are also guided through the process for dissemination of study findings.   Karen Gabel Speroni, Ph.D., R.N., who developed the NRIP and Jennifer Sedlmeyer BSN, RN, a former research intern, will discuss the requirements for implementation of a hospital-based NRIP as well as the research infrastructure required for conduct of the NRIP.  Practical application of the NRIP will be applied with a description of two studies led by Nurse Research Interns in the women’s health, obstetric and neonatal nursing practice setting.  The first is a prospective, randomized study examining the effect of music as a therapeutic nursing intervention on post cesearean-section patients’ pain scores and perception of nurses’ caring.  The purpose of the second study was to determine breastfeeding rates through one year and to determine the factors associated with the initial decision to breastfeed and the subsequent factors that result in continued breastfeeding or the decision to discontinue breastfeeding through one year.

The NRIP has been hugely successful in engaging nurses in not only research, but in promoting evidence based practice, in mentoring, and disseminating research findings.  Inova Nurse Research Interns have presented their findings at various professional meetings and published them in journals and books. Twenty-one nurses have completed the NRIP to date, many in the women’s health, obstetric and neonatal field.  This presentation will provide suggestions for engaging nurses in health care institutions to answer their best practice questions.