What is Evidence-Based Practice?
Evidence-Based Nursing is, “an ongoing process by which evidence, nursing theory and the practitioners’ clinical expertise are critically evaluated and considered, in conjunction with patient involvement, to provide delivery of optimum nursing care for the individual” .
EBN is an approach to practice that is intended to improve the safety and effectiveness of nursing care and practices.
The 5 Steps of EBP
Evidence-based practice consists of five steps:
ASSESS the patient
ASK a searchable clinical question
ACQUIRE the best evidence to answer the question
APPRAISE the evidence
APPLY to the patient
Also consider the type of question you are asking and determine what study type might be most relevant.
Examples:
Most Clinical Questions: Meta-analyses, systematic reviews
Therapy: Randomized Controlled Trial
Diagnosis: Prospective, blind controlled trial compared to gold standard
Prognosis: Cohort study, case control, case series/case report
A collection of articles from American Journal of Nursing were developed to give nurses the knowledge and skills they need to implement EBP consistently, one step at a time.