Evidence-Based Nursing: Clarifying the Concepts for Nurses in Practice



Evidence-Based Nursing: Clarifying the Concepts for Nurses in Practice

Introduction

Evidence based nursing is an evidence based healthcare practice that helps the nurses in ensuring that they are able to provide the best care to the patients by relating them to previous cases. They follow the traditions of the evidence based medicine and help the nurses in implementing them so as to provide the best healthcare quality care (Solomons, 2011). This paper will review an article, 'Evidence-Based Nursing: Clarifying the Concepts for Nurses in Practice.'

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is a branch of medicine that aims to improve clinical decisions based on systematic research on medical diagnostic procedures and therapeutic processes. With the advent of this type of medicine, the diagnostic criteria have changed. For example, Diabetes is a disease that is being diagnosed in a very different way since the last few decades. Since the last few decades, the dosage of blood glucose has been the optimum diagnostic test of choice, complemented by the curve of glucose load and then, clinical follow-ups to determine 'glycosylated' hemoglobin in the patient (eg. the sweet taste of urine). The most important factor in EBP is that the diagnosis is based on a relatively arbitrary distinction between healthy and sick. Even in diabetes, as for many other diseases, it is considered that the line between normal and abnormal is vague and it is believed that there is a possibility of a grey area in which diagnosis is not certain but probabilistic.

Article Summary

The article establishes the fact that evidence based nursing is the use of theory that is based on the information that is present from the previous research and findings and helps in making decisions related to the healthcare delivery system. This helps the nurses in ensuring that they provide the best quality healthcare to the patients and as they have experienced the practice before, as well, they will be able to implement the same practice again successfully (Scott & McSherry, 2008).

The barriers to evidence based nursing are not limited to the United States of America alone. They are as prevalent in other countries such as United Kingdom, Belgium and other European countries. One of the most common barrier to evidence based nursing is the lack of initiative and lack of interest on the part of nurses themselves (Lindberg, 2004). They feel that their position in the entire process of provision of quality care is about providing assistance, while they themselves are not in a position to make or take any decisions. Hence, they lack any form of authority at all. This further leads to a lack of motivation. Research reveals that if the barriers to evidence based practice were to be divided in themes, then there can emerge five common threads (Solomons & Spross, 2011). These are characteristics that pertain to patients and family, those pertaining to nurses themselves and nursing practices, doctors and management and supervisors. In addition, there are some characteristics of evidence that may ...