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What is Evidence-based Nursing Practice?

Evidence-based practice (EBP) in nursing is a process of locating, appraising, and applying the best evidence from the nursing and medical literature to improve the quality of clinical practice.

It involves:

1. Formulating a clear question based on a clinical problem;

2. searching the literature for the best available evidence;

3. evaluating the strength of that evidence in terms of validity and generalisability;

4. implementing useful findings in clinical practice based on valid evidence; evidence is used alongside clinical expertise and the patients' perspective to plan care;

5. evaluating performance through a process of self reflection, audit, or peer assessment.

Why Evidence-Based Practice?

Melnyk and Fineout-Overhold, in their book Evidence-Based Practice in Nursing & Healthcare (2005) p. 3-4, argue for the utility of EBP through real-life examples:

• If you are caring for a child who was in a motor vehicle accident and sustained a severe head injury, would you want to know and use the most effective, empirically supported treatment established from randomized controlled trials to decrease his or her intracranial pressure?
• If your mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, would you want her health care providers to give you information about how other family caregivers of patients with this disease have coped with the illness, based on evidence from well-designed qualitative and/or descriptive studies?
• If you were diagnosed with cancer today and were faced with the decision about which type of chemotherapy to choose, would you want to know the evidence regarding the risks and benefits of each therapeutic agent as generated from prior clinical trials with other similar cancer patients?

Information Literacy is a requirement to practice effective evidence-based nursing.

Information literacy involves the ability to

• locate
• manage
• critically evaluate
• use

information for problem solving, research, decision making, current awareness, and professional development.