EVIDENCE BASED PRACTICE

Evidence Based Practice

Evidence Based Practice

Since the 1970's the term evidence-based health care has progressively been used more, the expansion of evidence-based health care has risen with the development of being able to access a range of information. Other factors that have contributed to the use of evidence based health care include; changing of public expectations, political consensus, cost pressures and professional accountability (Hamer Collinsons 2005, cited by Cutcliffe W. & J. Ward M, 2004).

There are many different definitions to describe evidence-based practice (EBP), the best known definition was written by Sackett et al (1997, cited by Lindsay, B 2007) he states that EBP is the 'Conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence about the care of individual patients.' To paraphrase, EBP is an approach where a professional is able to use current evidence and research to backup and give an accurate reason for their care they provide for patients.

As a student nurse, EBP is very significant in me being able to offer the best up to date care I possibly can for my patients, it also enables me to use existing evidence to support my practice and allows me to understand the reasons in which I perform certain aspects of my clinical practice, therefore I am accountable for all of my actions. EBP is an important factor in being able to work in a multidisciplinary team, without me participating in EBP it's possible that I would become isolated from a multidisciplinary team and not offer the best care for my patients.

If I was to locate research evidence on the hand hygiene practices; which is the topic addressed in the article, I would use a very precise search strategy to be able to gain appropriate research. First of all I would produce a clinical question, which is a useful means for excluding research which is not relevant to the situation within the article. I would construct this question by using the following headings: Situation, Intervention, Counter intervention and Outcome (Basset, C 2004). I would then choose keywords from my focused clinical question to help me find available research and articles. The key words that would be appropriate to use would be 'hand washing', 'alcohol gel', 'infection control precautions' and 'nursing students'.

I would use a limitation of when the date was published (1995-2008) to ensure the research I gather is up to date. I would then use these keywords and limitation to search numerous academic and professional journal databases such as CINAHAL, British Nursing index, Embase, Ovid journals and Medline. I may also use these keywords in a general search engine such as Google; in this case I would have to take in consideration the amount of information that would be available and the reliability of the information.

A pilot study of the interview was undertaken first with two pre-registration students who were not included in the overall sample. Pilot studies are a vital component of a high-quality study ...