Evidence-based practice (EBP) is the term that refers to the need for nursing to be based on research that has been conducted in the most thorough scientific manner, consistently tested, rigorously proved, and only then published by peer-refereed academic journals.
Evidence-based nursing is popular in nursing since it joins science with practice and bases nursing on a more critical scientific basis. It puts the nurse, so to speak, in the driver's seat and allows her -- in fact encourages her -- to question her transmitted teachings, to critically review authoritative sources of her field, and to herself conduct studies would she so wish.
This is important in various ways: firstly it makes nursing a more of an intellectual study for students who may need and wish for that intellectual component. Secondly, it frees nurses form the traditional, often submissive and uncritical obeisance to doctors. Nurses are encouraged to critically question their teachings and to conduct independent reading and thinking that may actually reveal information contradictory to what they are taught. Thirdly, it makes nurses more confident: more confident that they can know, understand, and contribute tote h field on the same level, in a similar way -- just as intellectual -- as the physicians can. Nurses are no longer in the demoted position. Their knowledge and skill in scientific research ratchets them to an equal position with that of their traditional...
Finally, although not conclusively, EBP is excellent for nurses, for patients, and for the medical institution in general in that it keeps nurses current with current research on their topic helping them to catch deficiencies in past action and to keep their practice on the cutting-edge. EBP is advantageous for many other reasons. These are just a few.
EBP, according to the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRG) is important not only in that it provides nursing practice with a reliable and authentic base, but is also cost-effective in that allocates related costs and resources in the most economical and effective manner by basing its needs on secure and reliable research (Scott & McSherry, 2009).
According to Scott and McSherry (2009), EBP has caused a paradigmatic shift in the field because, instead of nurses following authority opinion, as was previously the case, the caregiver now based his practice on scientific evidence, using research skills to collect and appraise her evidence. Tradition and hear-say are replaced by empirical findings that provide the basis of clinical decisions. Instead of being taught to do as was instructed, student nurses are now taught independent thinking and skills of reading, interpreting, and conducting research.
With EBP, too, the nurses' knowledge is based on cross-disciplinary set of subjects that include psychological, biological research, and…
