Looking into the nurses’ views regarding implementation of Evidence-Based Nursing in clinical practice

Abstract

Introduction: Although there are plenty of guidelines and protocols for clinical practice, the implementation, by healthcare professionals, of evidence-based practice (EBP) is not quite widespread in clinical practice. Evidence-based practice is related with improved patient outcomes and cost-effective care. The purpose of this study was to investigate the nurses’s views regarding the implementation of EBP in clinical practice. Methods: This is a systematic review. The literature review was conducted in Pubmed database with specific key-words and it consisted of last five years publications in English or Greek language. Initially 417 articles were found, of which ten, full text, clinical and multicentered studies, meta-analysis and comparison studies were finally selected. Results: Almost half of the nurses knew about EBP, had a positive attitude, and were keen to increasing their knowledge to follow the new trends in clinical practice. Nurses are less familiar with EBP, but argued that it is useful in clinical practice eventhough they lack the knowledge to implement it. Although most nurses knew what EBP was, they were less confident about their own knowledge and skills required. EBP needing advanced scientific knowledge and skills have been less frequently implemented. Lack of time, lack of skills required to search for information, processing and implementation of information, lack of administrative support and the lack of recognition of nursing profession were found to be the main obstacles in applying EBP in clinical practice. Younger nurses, those with a higher level of education, who held an administrative position and a full-time job had stronger views regarding the extent to which clinical nursing practice can be based on EBP. Conclusions: All nurses need to be properly educated and trained in order to be able to evaluate research and apply evidence-based changes in clinical practice. The introduction of evidence-based practice into nursing curricula, as well as its systematic integration into everyday clinical practice, will greatly enhance nurses' conviction.