Professor Alison Kitson

Biography/ Background

Professor Alison Kitson was appointed as Professor of Nursing and Head of Discipline of Nursing at the University of Adelaide in January 2009, one of only three 5 ERA rated Nursing Schools in Australia. She also holds an appointment as Co- Director of the Centre for Evidence Based Practice South Australia (CEPSA), a collaborating centre of the Joanna Briggs Institute, and is an Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford in the UK. Before coming to Australia she held a number of strategic leadership and executive positions in one of the world’s largest professional organisations for nursing, the Royal College of Nursing of the United Kingdom. Her research over the last 20 years has focused on knowledge translation (KT) activity relating to better understanding the mechanisms that enable new knowledge (in the forms of guidelines or innovations in practice such as new roles) to be introduced into clinical practice. She is internationally recognised for her work in this area, and in particular as the originator of one of the most widely cited and used KT frameworks, the Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services (PARIHS) Framework.

Funding

Since coming to Australia Professor Kitson is a Chief Investigator on two current NHMRC Project Grants, one ARC Project Grant and one competitive grant awarded by Cancer Australia. To date, the Australian research income amounts to around $3,500,000. She is also currently a Chief Investigator on major international research grants funded by the European Union (€3million) and the National Institute for Health Research in the UK (£1.5 million). She is also receiving funding from the Royal Adelaide Hospital for a nutrition implementation project.

Publications

She is a co-author of over 120 peer reviewed papers and 12 book chapters and publishes consistently in top ranking journals related to nursing and in particular around innovations, leadership and new roles (Journal of Advanced Nursing, Journal of Nursing Management, International Journal of Nursing Practice) knowledge translation research (Implementation Science, International Journal of Evidence Based Health Care, Safety and Quality in Health Care). At least 20 papers have been cited more than 50 times, with six papers being cited over 200 times, placing her in the top percentage of cited authors in nursing and knowledge translation worldwide.

International and national profile

She has been an invited speaker at numerous international and national scientific and professional meetings, including the annual meetings of the Joanna Briggs Colloquium, the Guideline International Network group, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research funded conferences, and numerous professional nursing meetings in Australia, Singapore, the US and Europe. Most recently she has been approached by the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta to serve on an expert panel around context and the translation of evidence around managing violent behaviour. She has also been a keynote speaker at the national Nurse Practitioner meeting and has been invited to address the conference at the 2011 meeting in Adelaide. She has been the recipient of a number of awards, including a Fellowship of the Royal College of Nursing of the United Kingdom (FRCN) for her work on Standards of Nursing Care in 1991, a Florence Nightingale Travel Fellowship in 1999, Distinguished Graduate of the Year Award from her alma mater, the University of Ulster in 2001, a Florence Nightingale Leadership award in 2004 and a Fellowship of the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN) in 2009. She has active international research collaborations with colleagues in Sweden, Oxford, the Netherlands, Qatar, Alberta, Toronto and New Jersey

Research Translation

The insights derived from her work have been highly influential in shaping the theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches used in KT research and more broadly in understanding how health systems embrace new roles and practices.

Training

She has supervised to completion 10 PhD or higher degree students and has currently four doctoral students in Australia. She has set up a postdoctoral research exchange program in the School of Nursing and will be hosting post doctoral fellows from Sweden and Jordan in 2011. A number of her former PhD students now occupy senior academic positions in nursing.

Contribution to the profession

She serves on a number of editorial boards (Nursing Research, International Journal of Evidence Based Health Care, and International Journal of Nursing Practice), is an executive member of the Council of Deans for Nursing and Midwifery of Australia and New Zealand (CDNM) and is a member of the Royal College of Nursing in Australia, The Academy of Nursing in the US, the Royal College of Nursing in the UK. She also co-leads the Cochrane Nursing Care Field on the Fundamentals of Care.

Contribution to research

She is a member of the research committee of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Adelaide. She is a peer reviewer for numerous international and national journals and has served on numerous scientific review committees in the UK.

Recent Publications

Under review

Kitson et al  Improving older peoples’ care in one acute hospital setting:  A realist evaluation of a KT intervention.

Seers et al Facilitating the Implementation of Research Evidence (FIRE) Project. A Study Protocol

 Accepted for publication

Kitson, A L, Silverston, H. Wiechula, R. Marcoionni, D., Page, T., Zeitz, K.Clinical nursing leaders’, team members’ and service managers’ experiences of implementing evidence at local level. Journal of Nursing Management

Peer Reviewed Articles Published

Zeitz K, Kitson A L, Gibb H, Bagley E, Chester M, Davy C, Frankham J, Guthrie SM, Roney F, Shanks A (2010) Working together to improve the care of the older person: A New Framework for Collaboration. Journal of Advanced Nursing, doi:10.1111/j.1365

 Schultz, T J & Kitson A L (2010) Measuring the context of nursing care within an Australian acute care hospital a nurse survey.  Implementation Science 5:60

Kitson A L, Conroy T, Wengstrom Y, Profetto-McGrath J, Robertson-Malt S, (2010) Defining the Fundamentals of Care. International Journal of Nursing Practice 16: 423-434.

Kitson A L, Strauss S. (2010) The knowledge-to-action cycle: identifying the gaps 182 (2);E73-7

 Wiechula, R. Kitson, A L, Marcoionni, D., Page, T., Zeitz, K., Silverston, H. (2009) Improving the Fundamentals of Care for Older People in the Acute Hospital Setting: Facilitating practice improvement using a Knowledge Translation (KT) Tool kit. International Journal of Evidence Based Healthcare (7) 4 283-295

 Kitson A L, (2009) Knowledge Translation and Guidelines: A Transfer, Translation or Transformation Process? International Journal of Evidence Based Healthcare; 7; 124-139

 Kitson A L, Marcoionni D, Page T, Wiechula R, Zeitz K, Silverston H (2009) Using Knowledge Translation to Transform the Fundamentals of Care: A description of the Older Person and Improving Care Project (TOPIC7) Green Templeton College Monograph  in Lyons, R.F. (Ed.) Oxford Symposium on Minding the Gap: Knowledge Translation Advances and Debates in Bridging Health Research and Action(Monograph). Halifax, NS: Dalhousie University, Atlantic Health Promotion Research Centre.

 KITSON A L (2009) The need for systems change: reflections on knowledge translation and organizational change. Journal of Advanced Nursing 65(1), 217–228

 Kitson, A L and Bisby M (2008) Speeding up the Spread. Putting KT research into practice and developing an integrated KT collaborative research agenda. Background paper funded by The Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research. Canada.

 Kitson, A L (2008) The uncertainty and incongruity of evidence-based healthcare. Editorial Int .J Evid Based Healthc. 6, 1, 1 -2.

 Kitson A L, Rycroft-Malone J, Harvey G, McCormack B, Seers, K, Titchen A (2008) Evaluating the successful implementation of evidence into practice using the PARIHS Framework: theoretical and practical challenges. Implementation Science.3,1,(http://www.implementationscience.com/content/3/1/1)

 Kitson A L, Rycroft-Malone J, Harvey G, McCormack B, Seers, K, Titchen A (2008) Evaluating the successful implementation of evidence into practice using the PARIHS Framework:theoretical and practical challenges. Implementation Science.3,1,

 Kitson A L, (2007) What influences the use of research in clinical practice? Nursing Research; 56 (4 Suppl 1) S1-S3)

 

 

BOOKS EDITED/CONTRIBUTED

 

Kitson AL, et al (2010) Using knowledge translation to inform the fundamentals of care:The older person and improving care project.  http://www.ahprc.dal.ca/publications/monograph-pt3c.asp

In Using evidence:Advances and debates in bridging health research and action. Editor Lyons R.

http://www.ahprc.dal.ca/pdf/publications/monograph.asp

 

Lyons R, McIntyre L, Warner G, Alvero C, Buchanan A, Reckless I, Kitson A (2010) Chronic Illness Research: Translating What we know into what we do. In Translating Chronic Illness Research into Practice. Edited by Kralik D, Paterson B, Coates V. Wiley-Blackwell, ISBN 978-1-4051-5965-4

 

Kitson  A L, & Strauss, S. (2009) Identifying the knowledge-to-action gaps In Knowledge Translation in Health Care: Moving from Evidence to Practice Edited by S. Straus, J. Tetroe and I. Graham Blackwell Publishing, ISBN: 978-1-4051-8106-8

 

Chang L R, Kitson A L, Petch A, (2006) Who’s going to care? in Morris Z S, Chang L R, Dawson S, Garside P (eds) Policy Futures for UK Health, The Nuffield Trust; London

 

Kitson A L (2005) Confessions of a Graduate Nurse in Oliver A (ed) Personal Histories in Health Research, The Nuffield Trust; London

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Entry last updated: Friday, 21 Sep 2012