The legal research method: an approach to enhance nursing science.

The nature of legal research as it relates to other research methods used in nursing is described, its history discussed, and its relevance to nursing science examined. The major concepts of person, health, environment, and nursing can be explicated by legal research and analysis. The phenomenological method is the one considered most likely to be enhanced by legal research. Finally, the following are discussed: the history of legal research, the definition of legal research, steps in the legal research process, legal research source materials, nursing concepts clarified by legal research, and the parallels between phenomenology and legal research.