What Do You Need to Know and What Knowledge Does the Discipline of Nursing Need to Discover?

In 2025, by the beginning of September, the Journal of Nursing Scholarship had received more than 800 manuscripts. We are thankful for the healthy rate of submissions and endeavor to do everything to make prompt decisions. Indeed, the time from submission to first decision is only 10 days. However, we can't possibly publish all the excellent manuscripts we receive. Currently, our acceptance rate is low at only 9% (although we are working to have it be closer to 15%). Therefore, we want to ensure we are publishing the most methodologically rigorous science and the most significant science. To that end, we think a lot about two things. First, what knowledge is significant to the discipline? What discoveries are necessary for nurses to provide the best possible care? The second is what do you, our loyal readers and members of Sigma Theta Tau, wish to read? What articles are the most interesting and helpful in your practice? As an editorial board, we discuss what information the discipline needs. We have a global editorial board comprised of scientists who monitor the cutting-edge knowledge produced in their respective countries and around the world. They attend conferences, are involved in organizations, and provide valuable insight into global trends. As a group, we look at our published articles to see which of them are the most cited and downloaded. This is another good indication of your interest (especially the number of downloads of articles) and the discipline's needs (especially the number of articles cited by other researchers). We carefully examine which articles are not cited or downloaded, which is our best indicator that these articles are not helpful. Finally, we all have our own areas of scientific discovery and passions, and these passions influence article selection, as does the expert guidance provided by peer-reviewers, who are our key decision makers. All this data informs decision-making about which articles are likely to be of the greatest interest and utility to you and to the discipline. Currently, we are interested in publishing studies that have cost as an outcome in addition to health outcomes or outcomes such as quality of life and patient satisfaction. We care about how the people to whom we provide care feel about their care and how they perceive their health. However, because health care is expensive, we also desperately need research that helps us to determine which interventions are cost-effective. Nursing time is precious. Which interventions provide the best value? We certainly understand the need for descriptive, correlational research. However, we need to care for our patients over time. Longitudinal research is essential. Although it is harder to keep subjects in studies long-term, we need longitudinal research to understand the long-term consequences of our intervention research. Interventions proven to be effective over time through randomized trials and that are cost-effective provide a new standard for helping the discipline of nursing to make wise choices about the implementation of care. Excellent review articles help us know the state of science, and these help to reduce research waste by ensuring that nurse scientists are not rediscovering extant knowledge. However, we are beginning to see many review articles that are focusing on very narrow topics. Although they may be methodologically sound, the significance of these narrow reviews is questionable. Especially troublesome to me is the large number of reviews that conclude by saying nurse administrators need to consider these very narrow findings. Nurse administrators have much to consider. Let us help them by providing cost and outcome data that help them to make wise choices. There are areas of research that are emerging for which we have had special issues. These include big data, artificial intelligence, mental health, health care needs of specific populations like gender-diverse people, and climate change and its effect on health. We will continue to identify emerging areas for research and would love your help in doing so. Which special issues would you find very helpful? We would like to know what you would change in our decision-making. What essential gaps exist in our scientific knowledge, and what would you like to read research about? What research are you passionate about? Keeping in mind research waste and the need not to repeat what is already known, what information do you wish to see published that is not already known? If there is one article you would really like to read, what would it be? Let us know what you would add to our thinking so that we can do the best job in providing you the cutting-edge knowledge you need. Email us at [email protected]. We are eager to have your voice as part of our decision-making process! By thinking together about our individual and collective needs, we can ensure that research that is already being done and that meets your needs is published efficiently and we can help emerging scholars as they develop their research trajectories. Thank you for thinking with us and for communicating your thoughts. The author declares no conflicts of interest. The author has nothing to report.