and completing courses on nursing research, no studies were found regarding their interest in nursing research or their motivation to develop and conduct nursing research in orthopaedic departments (hereafter OD). BACKGROUND The demand for research in clinical practice, including nursing research, is rising (Breimaier et al., 2011) and patients are entitled by law (The Danish Health Law, 2005) to receive evidence-based care and treatment (Carlson & Plonczynski, 2008). Studies show how clinical nurses, who tend to be very interested in conducting research (Akerjordet et al., 2012), are motivated to expand their knowledge (Tranmer et al., 2002; Higgins et al., 2010), and have positive attitudes towards research in general (Akerjordet et al., 2012; McMaster et al., 2013; Kajermo et al., 1998; Glacken & Chaney, 2004). Akerjordet and colleagues (2012) discovered in their cross-sectional survey of 364 clinical nurses from a Norwegian university hospital, that 40% had a positive attitude towards research and 56% wanted to increase their research competencies. In an Australian survey of 32 mental health consultation nurses, McMaster and colleagues (2013) found that 41% of the participants reported an interest in becoming involved in research, and 53% reported their current research competencies to be ‘moderate’ to ‘good’. Results also showed that 53% reported having research goals over the next twelve months (McMaster et al., 2013). Although clinical nurses’ are predominantly portrayed as having a positive attitude to research, many studies conducted on clinical nurses’ utilization and participation in nursing research focus on the nurses’ self-perceived barriers and deficiencies with respect to pursuing research in the clinical area (McMaster et al., 2013; Akerjordet et al., 2012; Carlson & Plonczynski, 2008; Adamsen et al., 2003; Breimaier et al., 2011; Roxburgh, 2006; Brown et al., 2010; Chan et al., 2011; Higgins et al., 2010). Breimaier and colleagues (2011) conducted a self-report questionnaire study of 1,023 Austrian hospital nurses, and found three main barriers to research utilisation to be lack of time (70%), lack of information and/or knowledge (46%), and lack of interest (26%). Adamsen and colleagues (2003) also found lack of time for participation in research studies (37%) to be a barrier, along with insufficient time to read new research results or implement new ideas (50%). In a qualitative, exploratory study, Roxburgh (2006) interviewed seven nurses about their views on factors which they perceived constrained them from research participation. The key themes of the analysis revealed that the nurses felt constrained about lack of time, lack of peer support, and limited skills and knowledge (Roxburgh, 2006). Roxburgh suggests that nurses should be given financial incentives to participate in research (Roxburgh, 2006). The literature shows how clinical nurses’ knowledge about the development and execution of nursing research has been varied and that not all nurses are able or willing to utilize, undertake or participate in research (Mulhall, 1997). Studies also show how nurses’ lack of knowledge on research implementation limits their use of research findings in daily practice due to the influence of barriers to research use (Brown et al., 2010) and because the results are not easily transferable to clinical practice (McKenna et al. 2004). Findings in Rycroft-Malone and colleagues’ study (2004) of exploring the factors that influence the implementation of evidence into practice showed, that implementing evidence and developing practice is challenging and involves many factors. In Danish clinical hospitals, very few academic nurses are employed to develop, conduct or implement nursing research (Poulsen et al., 2013). For Danish orthopaedic nursing the deficiencies are even more pronounced as hospital management requires nurses to demonstrate evidence to support practice. The hospital management requires that nurses are able to demonstrate evidence to support practice, in order to improve the quality of orthopaedic nursing care, since the patients are entitled to receive high quality care based on recently acquired research knowledge (Breimaier et al., 2011).