8 Key Components of a Winning Obstetrical Nursing Research Proposal

NHS Digital Data released an update about nurses’ vaccines: “In 2021, the total number of vaccines was 38,814, and in 2022, there were 46,828 registered nurses vacancies in the NHS, and the vaccine rate rose up to 21%.”

This statistical information shows that the demand for nursing is increasing over time. Students can move their careers towards clinical nursing, obstetrical nursing, labour and delivery care, or nurse consultant, or can go for research, teaching and work overseas. 

Obstetrical nursing is one of the pivotal parts of the nursing department that emerged in the mid-19th century. It is a specialised area of nursing that only deals with those women’s health who are trying to conceive, are currently pregnant, or recently giving birth to a child, also known as perinatal nursing. The demands of OB nurses increased when most of the women lost their lives while giving birth to a baby. 

According to the WHO (World Health Organization): 

“There are 287,000 women who died during and following pregnancy and childbirth in 2020, and this number of deaths is unacceptably high.”

As a result, significant progress has been made over the last two decades in providing parental care, managing progeny-related complications, and care for post-delivery. Nowadays, people are taking an interest and considering a mother and her childcare problems more seriously. Therefore, students are taking admission in Bachelor of Science in Nursing or an Associate Degree in Nursing degrees. 

Obstetrical Nursing Research Proposal

Nursing students have to learn the tough subject with practice, and their toughest task is research paper writing as a final project. Before writing a research paper, they have to compose a research proposal to convince the organisation who wants to fund or financial support for conducting research. 

Clara Herlina Karjo defines research proposal in the book “Writing and Researching for A Thesis Proposal” published in 2020,

“A research proposal is the backbone of your final research project. This research proposal covers 40% of your final research project with a length of 3000-5000 words.”

Students face a bundle of challenges while executing their proposals. To cope with this problem, you need to know about the key components of your proposal, or you can avail of a proposal writing service and get rid of this hectic and time-consuming task. 

8 Key Components of a Winning Obstetrical Nursing Research Proposal

A research proposal is a detailed explanation of the research you want to conduct on a specific subject matter or to address a research question. There are some main components of the Obstetrical Nursing research proposal, and if you missed any of them, you can formulate your proposal effectively. 

Dr GOPINATH. R. give a complete flowchart on all the essential components of a proposal in his article. “ Research Proposal-Flow Chart-New Research Scholars-Reg” published in 2015, as shown below: 

Here, we are going to discuss these components in detail. So, let’s get started. 

1. Title

The title is the sole representation of your whole project in only one line, which lets the reader know what the project is. The title of your obstetrical nursing proposal should not be complicated and overwhelming. Make sure to select a title which represents a central core of your research design in a more grabbing, attractive and convincing way. 

2. Keywords

Keywords are essential components in your research proposal. These are terms, words, or phrases relevant to the subject matter that you write in your research proposal. The purpose of adding keywords is to facilitate your readers who do not know the key terms of your Obstetrical Nursing proposal topic. 

3. Abstract

In this section, the student gives a brief description of the research problem and a study design to solve it. The abstract is a summary of almost 300 words containing the main research question and outlining the solution by concisely describing the rationale for the study, hypothesis, procedure, and instruments that you will use in your research. 

It includes all the possible information that gives a complete glimpse of your study insights and implications. The University of Wisconsin – Madison: The Writing Center give an example of a research proposal abstract as shown below: 

4. Study Goal

Expressing your research objectives is very important to make your proposal more appealing. Your study goals are the aims you want to achieve from your study design. Your objectives may be started from general to specific. However, you need to focus on your specific objectives that will be related to the research question. You develop more than one study goal by ranking them. 

• Primary research goal
• Secondary research goal

5. Introduction

This is the section where you can introduce your thesis statements, and then you can emphasise the importance of your selected topics. The purpose of the introduction is to provide a framework for the research so that your reader can be able to understand why your nursing research paper topic is important. In your introduction, you need to answer why this research needs to be done and how it will be important for further research. So, build a context for your whole research design. 

6. Literature review

A literature review is all about reviewing the existing research of other people related to your topic. In Obstetrical nursing research proposal writing, you are required to discuss the previous study design of major authors, their obstetrical nursing research proposal ideas and findings. This can include the information of theoretical authors, researchers, and conceptual researchers. 

So, in your literature review part, you need to create a big canvas of previous literature. It will allow you to identify the research gap, and you will be able to raise research questions. 

7. Methodology

It is a very important section because it tells your raiders that you will tackle the research problem. The best strategy is that you should include all the detailed information about the methods that you will use. This is all about your study design, which will start from your study objectives and then your hypothesis. 

After that, mention all the methods and resources through which you have collected your primary and secondary data. Apply your study design and see the expected outcomes. According to the “Antarctic Glaciers” article on “Research Design”, you can represent your workflow model by following the below research model. 

Ensure your research study design should give answers to every research query. Designing a study model is the best way to solve every methodological issue before submitting your proposal. 

8. Ethical Consideration

Health research is always based on ethical considerations. Before you submit your proposal to the Ethics Committee for approval, attach two vital documents such as: 

• Ethics checklist
• The Informed consent form

Additionally, researchers must provide a statement regarding Conflict of Interest, which is another critical issue that you should address.

9. Time

The research proposal also contains the timelines that are required to conduct the research. To create a timetable, create a Gantt chart on paper or an Excel sheet, and outline each task or your objective in a column and its dedicated time mentioned in rows. 

“Antarctic Glaciers” represent a Gantt chart to predict the time duration for conducting research as shown below: 

10. Proposal budget

Your proposal budgets contain items-wise price or activity-wise budget information on how the study design will be financed.  

11. References

End your proposal by giving a list of reflections from where you have picked up any idea about the previous research. Ensure to cite your sources according to the institute’s referencing styles. 

Conclusion

Writing a research paper is the last project of nursing students, and before that, they all have to submit their proposals. Your proposal quality determines your further research; either it will be accepted or rejected.  There are many obstacles that most of the students face because of unawareness of the essential components of the prop, lack of in-depth knowledge, and poor academic writing skills for obstetrical nursing proposal writing.

Therefore, we have discussed in detail the key components of a winning obstetrical nursing research proposal. But if you do not want to go through this hectic procedure, get research proposal help from a good firm and increase the chances of proposal acceptance.