EDITORIAL
Internationalization of Nursing know-and-do
This editorial was written based on the answers we received from several nursing professionals to the following questions: How important is internationalization for the nursing know-and-do? 2. What makes internationalization difficult? 3. What are the paths toward internationalization?
Therefore, we would first like to thank Doctor Professors Alacoque Lorenzini Erdmann, Helen M. Castillo, Lorita Marlena Freitag Pagliuca, Maria Helena Palucci Marziale, Maria Márcia Bachion, and Paulino Artur F. de Sousa for their prompt reply. Their answers supported our reflections, which we now share with nurses, emphasizing, in these interviews, the statements we consider priority for an editorial.
Most interviewees stated that since nursing is inserted in a world that is becoming more and more interdependent, and following a tendency toward globalization, it has had a more active, interdependent, autonomous, and pro-active intervention regarding its knowledge dissemination. The idea of globalization implies an action of projecting from inside, which, in turn, implies an effective capacity to mobilize and implement national resources in international contexts and territories; that is, increase the reference area for nurses. Regarding nursing in Brazil, an additional impulse toward achieving internationalization should be assigned to the evaluation process in postgraduate programs, which implies this movement has an important role in those programs.
The internationalization of nursing know-and-do provides a useful flow of knowledge and activities among countries. This contributes to sharing ideas and practices, and, thus, broadens the horizons in nursing, working as an open system, more capable of answering the profession's internal and external needs.
Most interviewees consider the process of universal knowledge dissemination produced by the Brazilian nurses to be indispensible for the internationalization of nursing know-and-do, which basically originates from publications in Brazilian serials indexed in databases that allow international access or by publications by national authors in foreign serials also included in the data bases of broad dissemination.
The difficulties to mobilize this process, as reported by the interviewees, include various aspects. These aspects range from the selection of themes linked to contemporary needs and integrated to the nursing profession to beyond its geographic boundaries, becoming more attractive for the editors of foreign serials, passing by studies with unquestionably rigorous methodological outlines, and surpassing the diagnoses stage, to the restriction in reading and writing in the English language. On the other hand, the participants reflect about the scarcity of centers that develop strategic categories to promote the internationalization of nursing know-and-do, as well as about the inexistence of mechanisms to share this information with colleagues.
Therefore, internationalization is a great challenge for nursing, because it implies having to balance the idea of the external validation that is produced and the need that nurses have to follow the technological/scientific development to fully accomplish the practice of a profession that implies being capable to meet the various people's needs, in various spheres and contexts.
Among the strategies used to overcome the current challenges, the interviewees recommended interchange programs and a more effective collaboration between national and international researchers, socializing opportunities and dissemination of the impact brought by the findings. In this sense, national authors should make an effort to deepen the analysis and discussions of their research findings, as well as to clarify their implications on the different conjectures. This way, our products would become more attractive for the international audience, which does not imply the lack of social sensitivity for specific problems.
Participants reported that the strategies used to overcome these obstacles address the mobilization of nurses in a range of aspects, as follows:
1) increase person-to-person communication by exchanging emails with nurses from other countries (this is the main reason why the authors' e-mails are included in the papers);
2) more investment in the infrastructure and professionalization of the work performed by editors and the technical team, including their training and valuing, as well as that of the referees, researchers, authors, in a permanent feed-back process;
3) increase and value students' participation, at all levels, in research and extension projects, and support to the practice of consuming scientific literature with no limitations in terms of language, since the beginning of their education; and,
4) adopt policies that assign more dynamics to the opportunities for international interchange programs in organizations/representatives/institutions.
The challenge is presented. Nurses and their leaders should establish pacts using strategies that have a view to join regional interests with innovative policies in favor of significant contributions for the world.
Profª Drª Alba Lúcia Bottura Leite de Barros
Editor Chefe da Acta Paulista de Endemagem
Profª Drª Maria Clara Cassuli Matheus
Editor Científica da Acta Paulista de Enfermagem
Profª Drª Maria Gaby Rivero de Gutiérrez
Professor Associado do Departamento de Enfermagem da Universidade Federal de São Paulo
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
24 Apr 2008 -
Date of issue
Mar 2008
