opinion leading nursing journals

[lxpatterson]

I am a new accelerated BSN nursing student with a first degree in biochem. I am unfamiliar with the nursing literature, and in particular, which are the most well-regarded peer-reviewed sources. I have found the titles of the journals are perhaps not especially helpful, for instance, Nursing Science Quarterly has not much science (at least as what I understand as conventional biomedical science).

Can you let me know what are the opinion-leading journals in nursing theory, EBM practice, and biomed/basic sciences?

[ChristineN, BSN, RN]

I recently started subscribing to the American Journal of Nursing. It has articles on the results and findings of recent research studies, in depth articles to help further educate you on a disease or "problem" in nursing, and more. If you are looking for something with a meaty science base then nursing journals might be lacking to your taste. Nursing journals are going to focus more on nursing practice and research (or should), than on scientific findings and such.

[lxpatterson]

I'm not looking for specifically "scientific" journals, but just the leading journals in their field and interest/bias.

Like for instance in biochem, the leading journals are biochemistry, acta biochem, nature biocemistry...

Or in pain research it's Pain, Neurology, and Pain and symptoms management (palliative/chronic interest)

[llg, PhD, RN]

There are hundreds of nursing publications -- and each specialty within nuring has its own "main" journals where the experts go to publish are read. Most of those specialty journals are published by the professional associations for those specialties. For the more scholarly journals that are not focused on a specific specialty, here are a few to check out:

1. The Journal of Nursing Research

2. Image: The Journal of Nursing Scholarship (strong international flavor)

3. The Journal of Professional Nursing

4. The Western Journal of Nursing Research

Also, remember that as a human practice discipline, nursing recognizes the value of ALL types of research (qualitative, historical, philosophical, etc.) as well as the quantitative research you are more accustomed to reading in the biochem literature. Those other types of research / scholarly activity are just as legitimate as quantitative research, just different. Your biochem education may not have prepared you to interpret and evaluate those other types of scholary work -- but they can be good legitimate research, too.