Evidence-Based Practice

Discussion: Nursing Research and Evidence-Based Practice

In your practice as a nurse, you may use procedures and methods that did not necessarily originate in evidence, but instead were derived from informal and unwritten conventions, traditions, and observations. While these techniques may have merit, practices are constantly being updated and contradicted by information from scholarly research studies and professional guidelines. This new information serves as “evidence” for revising practices to improve outcomes across health care.

Based on this evidence, you can formulate a question. In this Discussion, you consider the use of evidence-based practice in your own organization and formulate a question that you will need to answer for your portfolio project. This is called a PICOT question. You will also investigate strategies for overcoming barriers to implementing evidence-based practice (EBP).

To prepare:

Consider a recent clinical experience in which you were providing care for a patient.

Determine the extent to which the care that you provided was based on evidence and research findings or supported only by your organization’s standard procedures. How do you know if the tasks were based on research?

What questions have you thought about in a particular area of care such as a procedure or policy?

Review Chapter 2, pages 31–34 on “Asking Well worded Clinical Questions” in Polit & Beck and consult the resource from the Walden Student Center for Success: Clinical Question Anatomy & examples of PICOT questions (found in this week’s Learning Resources). Formulate your background questions and PICOT question.

Reflect on the barriers that might inhibit the implementation of evidence-based practice in your clinical environment.

Review the article “Adopting Evidence-Based Practice in Clinical Decision Making” in this week’s Learning Resources. Select one of the barriers described that is evident in your organization and formulate a plan for overcoming this barrier.

Post an evaluation of the use, or lack thereof, of EBP in a recent clinical experience. Identify which aspects of the care delivered, if any, were based on evidence and provide your rationale. List your background questions and PICOT question about this nursing topic. Critique how the policies, procedures, and culture in your organization may hinder or support the adoption of evidence-based practices. Identify the barrier you selected from the article and explain how this barrier could be overcome within your organization.

Required Readings

Polit, D. F., & Beck, C. T. (2017). Nursing research: Generating and assessing evidence for nursing practice (10th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Wolters Kluwer.

Chapter 1, “Introduction to Nursing Research in an Evidence-Based Practice Environment”

This chapter provides an introduction to nursing research, its history, and the evolution of evidence-based practice. It includes an overview of credible sources of evidences and a description of the different paradigms used in nursing research.

Chapter 2, “Evidence-Based Nursing: Translating Research Evidence into Practice”

The focus of this chapter includes an overview of the key aspects of evidence-based practice, a review of how to identify credible research and appraise its value, and, finally, a discussion on how to take the identified evidence and convert it into a practice.

Chapter 3, “Key Concepts and Steps in Qualitative and Quantitative Research”

In this chapter, quantitative and qualitative research models are compared and the major steps in each approach are described. Information is also presented on the different sections of a research journal article and how you can identify the research model that was utilized.

Adams, J. S. (2010). Utilizing evidence-based research and practice to support the infusion alliance. Journal of Infusion Nursing, 33(5), 273–277.