Special Issue: Moving Evidence-Based Practice Into Nursing Education

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Although the purpose of clinical research has always been to understand clinical problems and guide interventions, its systematic use in practice has drifted away from the early work of Florence Nightingale in the Crimea, where evidence was used to develop new models of care delivery for soldiers and, ultimately, hospital patients. Over the years, research has become an add-on in the educational curricula of schools of nursing. As authors point out in this issue, students have left their research courses wondering about the relevance of these to their aspirations to care for patients. Many of our graduate programs have been organized into separate tracks for clinicians and for researchers. But changes are appearing.

In 1992, a working group in medicine at the McMaster University published an article advocating for the use of research in teaching medical students and coined the term “evidence-based medicine” (Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group, 1992). Nearly a decade later, the Institute of Medicine issued five core recommendations for the education of health professionals, as a component of its quality series (Greiner & Knebel, 2003). One of these was the use of evidence in practice by all health professionals, including nurses.

Since that time, there has been an acceleration within nursing to develop skills among nursing students to practice in an evidence-based practice (EBP) environment. At the same time, there has been increasing interest on the part of hospitals to incorporate evidence into the practice of nursing. This issue of the Journal of Professional Nursing focuses on just these issues, with a particular emphasis on the educational issues in preparing students and nurses to use evidence in practice.

In the first article, Fineout et al. describe the mentorship models that have been used to develop EBP, distinguishing between research utilization and EBP. The processes within EBP are clearly described. In the second article, Cilista proposes an education model for preparing students in the processes of EBP. Three specific skills are more fully developed in the next three articles. Profetta-McGrath provides a linkage between critical thinking and competence in EBP and describes instructional strategies that develop critical thinking skills. Klem and Weiss describe the necessity and depth of searching for evidence to fully support clinical decisions on the part of nurses, with an advocacy for linkages with librarians skilled in these search strategies. Burke et al. describe the generation of sequential research competencies to support an EBP model from beginning students through to PhD graduates. Burns and Foley provide an exemplar of introducing EBP into the beginning education of nursing students. Lastly, Mohide and Coker provide an example of what can be expected and done within the clinical setting to stimulate EBP among practicing nurses without prior education in EBP and the potential of academic–service partnerships in moving toward EBP.

It is hoped that this issue will serve to provoke thought and discussion as well as generate ideas for moving forward with the education of nursing students as we in nursing move toward EBP models in our curricula.

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References 

1. Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group. Evidence-based medicine: A new approach to teaching the practice of medicine. Journal of the American Medical Association. 1992;268:2420–2421
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2. In:  Greiner AC,  Knebel E editor. Health professions education: A bridge to quality. Committee on the Health Professional Education Summit, Institute of Medicine. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press; 2003;
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