Facilitating Factors for Overcoming Barriers Facing Nurses for Research Utilization in Clinical Settings

Abstract

Research utilization refers to the use of some aspect of a study in an application unrelated to the original research. The aim of this study was to identify factors that facilitate nurses for overcoming barriers of utilization of research finding in clinical Practice. Design: descriptive correlation design was used. Setting; this study was conducted in; 1) the two Maternal and Child Health Centers in Sheben El-Kom and nine health Units affiliated to Sheben El-Kom districts-Menoufia governorate (2) Faculty of Nursing- Menoufia University. Sample; (1) a random sample 120 practical nurses from the two Maternal and in Sheben El-Kom and nine health Units affiliated to Sheben El-Kom districts (2) a convenience sample of 100 Academic staff from Faculty of Nursing who finished their Master or Doctorate degree was selected. Tools; a questionnaire to collect Socio-demographic data such as: age, educational, experiences and nursing' knowledge, Attitudes towards research utilization. 2. A barriers Scale for Practical Nurses to assess barriers to the use of research findings in practice that was developed by Funk et al., (1991). 3. A structured questionnaire. It was designed to include opinion towards what facilitating factors are important for nurses to adopt research utilization? The main results; total Nurses' Attitude toward research utilization was positive having mean of 8.31±1.43 with Maximum of 12.0 and Minimum of 6.0. Also the current study revealed that, 60 % of practical nurses does not use research findings in patient care/patient care procedures. The facilitating factors that overcoming barriers of research utilization was 80.0% & 64.2 % of academic staff and practical nurses respectively reported that; given adequate training in research utilization was extremely important. Conclusion: our practical nurses are facing many difficulties in implementing research utilization. Facilitating factors that overcome barriers was reported as; given adequate education in Research and its utilization & the support from nursing manager. Recommendations: Enhance research skills of practical nurses, enhance support from nursing manager and initiate a link between health institutions and academic researchers for adoption of research finding.