Is nursing research typical of biomedical research?

UK nursing research papers 1988-1995, classified by subject area and funding source, were compared with papers in a medical sub-field, anaesthetics research. By comparison with anaesthetics, nursing research papers are growing rapidly but mainly in subject areas related to the profession of nursing. Very few nursing research papers receive external funding, especially in these inward-looking or 'endogenous' subject areas. The esteem with which nursing research papers were held, both by researchers and practitioners, bore no relation to the citation scores of the journals. As nursing research matures, there will he a need to concentrate more on patient oriented, or 'exogenous' research and new funding sources for this will have to be developed.