Secondary Data Analysis as an Efficient and Effective Approach to Nursing Research

Meeting the expectation for scholarly productivity can be challenging for nursing faculty, especially in the absence of grant or other funding. Secondary data analysis is one strategy to address this challenge. The use of existing data to test new hypotheses or answer new research questions has several advantages. It typically takes less time and resources, is low risk to participants, and allows access to large data sets and longitudinal data. Despite these advantages, limitations do exist, including a lack of knowledge of the existence of rich data sets and how to obtain and evaluate the contents, insufficient or outdated data, and lack of funds to hire staff to assist with the work. Exemplars of secondary data analysis using public government and private data sets are presented along with the skills needed to conduct this type of analysis. Secondary data analysis is an efficient and effective approach to conducting nursing research.