The New Year promises many exciting developments for The Journal of Nursing Research. The recently released announcement of JNR's impact factor of 0.955 for 2015 marks an important milestone for nursing research in Taiwan. Moreover, the number of citations per year continues its robust rise as articles enjoy increasingly broad dissemination. Congratulations to all of our authors for achieving this distinction.
This April 2017 issue of The Journal of Nursing Research brings even more pioneering research content. The nine original studies that follow address a variety of significant health and research topics in international and domestic nursing, including organizational silence among nurses, randomized controlled trials of an empowerment program and intrapartum supportive care, kidney function disabilities in Taiwan, physical functioning among CHF patients in Korea and risky drinking among adolescents as well as two qualitative articles that explore the strength of patients with mental illness and the experiences of Jordanian parents in a neonatal care ward. Disseminating the findings of studies to nursing researchers who are constantly striving to improve the quality of their studies remains an important function of The Journal of Nursing Research.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to the scholars on the editorial board and to those in the editorial office for their collective effort and dedication to The Journal of Nursing Research. We have been extremely impressed by the insightfulness of reviews performed for the Journal, which in many cases have substantially improved the quality of our published articles. Our main focus will continue to be publishing high quality research articles that help health professionals navigate today's complex care environment. I thank all of our submitting authors who have toiled in the production of their work and have made JNR their journal of choice. We look forward to the JNR continuing to provide to this young, burgeoning field in Taiwan an academic voice and a venue for discourse that will move us forward to steady growth, both clinically and intellectually.