Phyllis Helms

Document Type

Honors Thesis

Abstract

In their daily practice, nurses continuously seek answers to clinical questions. It is critical that they know how to find evidence-based guidelines, standards, and research to guide their care and optimize patient outcomes. However, there are few studies of processes to increase nurses’ ability to find and analyze evidence for practice. Therefore, the purpose of this longitudinal quasi-experimental descriptive study was to measure the effect of an educational project on nurses’ knowledge and frequency of using library database resources to acquire and appraise evidence-based practice (EBP). A secondary purpose was to examine the effects of nurse characteristics (educational background, professional certification, and years of experience) on nurses’ library resource knowledge and usage. Twenty-eight nurses participated in the project by attending the one-hour training class (covering how to find resources for EBP data using library information services and how to critique research articles), and by completing a short Likert-type questionnaire at three intervals: before the class, after the class, and five months later. The questionnaire was designed for this project. Mean scores for the knowledge and ability section of the questionnaire had statistically significant improvements for four of the five questions, and the mean scores for the frequency section had statistically significant improvements for four of the five questions. Only one question in the knowledge and ability section showed slight decline five months after the intervention. Nurses’ educational characteristics had no effect on mean scores. Overall, the brief training influenced the nurses’ ability to search for, find, and appraise evidence-based information.

Publication Date

12-1-2017

Language

English

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