<p> IN HER plenary address to the RCN International Nursing Research conference in Edinburgh last year, Marla Salmon, Professor and Associate Dean for Graduate Studies, University of Pennsylvania, called upon nursing to: '...move beyond the paradigm of individual therapeutic action' and '...turn its most powerful intellectual force - research - towards the critical task of shaping public policy' (Salmon 1999). The purpose of research in nursing is at least twofold: to inform practice and to influence and shape policy.</p>