This ambitious and long-awaited volume brings together foremost nursing scholars, researchers, and educators to review and critique the state of research across areas most relevant to clinical practice. The contributorship appears as a veritable "who′s who" of nursing research and the contents comprise primary areas in the vanguard of nursing science. In the first section, the authors explore theoretical issues, the variety of philosophical approaches to scientific inquiry in nursing, factors shaping nursing research, and the relationship of the philosophical perspectives to research methodologies. In later sections, the scientists review and analyze the state of nursing science in relation to community health, practice strategies, family care, health promotion, biobehavioral investigations, women′s health, gerontologic nursing, and health system perspectives and outcomes. For physiological as well as psychological research, the most relevant theories driving the research are presented along with the review of multiple diverse instruments and measurement issues. Comprehensive in scope, cogent and truly thought provoking, a book such as the Handbook of Clinical Nursing Research arrives only once or twice in a career. It is a must-have shelf reference for every nurse and for those who would teach them.