Nursing Research Evidence-Based vs. Research

Nursing Research Evidence-based vs. research utilization in nursing practice The development of evidence-based practice in nursing was an attempt to make nursing theory more practical and applicable to the day-to-day life of a healthcare provider. It is defined as "the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients," in a clinical setting (Sackett et al. 1996).

It strives to merge the nurse's past experience with the nurse's present, trained skills in observation, and "the best available external clinical evidence" available from current systematic research (Sackett et al. 1996). Evidence-based nursing's definition of medical expertise is quite specific, namely "the more thoughtful identification and compassionate use of individual patients' predicaments, rights, and preferences" when making decisions, in the context of current research (Sackett et al. 1996).

It attempts to use the best available external clinical evidence "especially from patient-centered clinical research and stresses therapeutic, rehabilitative, and preventive regimens" validated in medical literature (Sackett et al. 1996). However, evidence-based health care had its critics, particularly by clinicians who are concerned that it undervalues the importance of tacit clinical knowledge. Critics say encourages "cookbook" medicine, through the injection of shortcuts known as "scripts" into the clinical decision-making process (Gabbay & le May 2004).

Research utilization, like the philosophical rubric of evidence-based practice, also strives to be practical, as reflected in its name -- it strives to use the most contemporary research available from the scientific community in a clinical setting. It emphasizes the need for clinicians keep abreast of new research developments, given that clinician's instinctual and compassionate responses, observations, and past experiences can be insufficiently informed by current research.

It was formed in acknowledgement of that a what nurse may think of as the top standard of quality care become go out-of-date quite quickly in the ever-changing field of medicine. For example, recent data has come out in the popular press regarding the possible concealment of data by drug companies regarding the effectiveness and side effects of antidepressants, the safety of newly developed pain medications, and even apparently evidence-based questions like risks for coronary heart disease. 2002 study noted that clinician's ability to effectively diagnose coronary conditions could vary wildly.

"Routine calculation of the risk of coronary heart disease in primary care is hampered by poor availability of data on risk factors. General practitioners and practice nurses are able to evaluate the risk of coronary heart disease with only moderate accuracy. Data about risk factors need to be collected systematically, to allow the use of the most appropriate calculation tools" (McManus 2002). Ideally, it offers greater flexibility than evidence-based practice, however, allowing nurses to vary standard operating procedures with the demands of clinical practice in dynamic response to known research.

The deployment of evidence-based practice that makes use of cutting-edge research is perhaps most obviously manifest in the greater knowledge research has given about demographic shifts as to who may or may not be vulnerable to particular diseases or conditions. Many years ago, Type II Diabetes was known as adult-onset diabetes, as insulin resistance was associated with obesity, sedentary behavior and other factors assumed to be prevalent amongst adults, not children.

Now a child exhibiting the common symptoms of excessive thirst, weakness, dizziness will likely be tested for this condition, because obesity has become more prevalent amongst the young. A research utilization model might provide, however, additional counseling to the nurse practitioner as to what course of treatment to prescribe. A child with more ample family and social support to lose weight, for example, and exercise, might, according to clinical data, be able to reverse the progress of the disease and forego the need for more intensive drug and insulin therapy.

Research utilization might also provide guidance in examples of how diabetes treatment has been most effective in a holistic treatment of the entire family, to eliminate some of the mutable causes that contributed to the child's condition in the first place. These causes will vary depending on the family's lifestyle, location, and demographics, and thus the prescription of foods to eat and avoid, support groups, exercise plans, will likewise vary. Ultimately, the idea of 'research utilization' may be, because.