The search strategy used four main sets of terms: regulation OR regulatory, nurse OR nursing, profession OR professional, and issues OR trends OR environmental scan. These four groups were then combined using the logical operator and.
A total of 64 retrieved papers were imported into Nvivo version 9 and then coded against the seven concepts identified by Kast and Rosenzweig (1972). To improve reliability, the principal author coded material, and the other authors independently reviewed the coding. The four authors reviewed differences or variations in coding until congruence of opinion was reached. The review uses the open systems framework and begins with an operational definition of the concept followed by identified themes and subthemes.