LibGuides: Nursing: Evidence-Based Nursing

What is Evidence?

Evidence-based practice is the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence with patient preferences in making decisions about the health care of individuals and groups. Evidence-based practice means integrating clinical expertise with the best available clinical evidence from systematic research and expert panel consensus.

Evidence Based Practice is a 4 step process:
1. Clearly identify the issue or problem based on accurate analysis of current nursing knowledge and practice
  - Define your search question
    - Flemming, K. Asking Answerable Questions. Evid Based Nurs 1998; 1:36-37.
2. Search the literature for relevant research
  - Select appropriate resources:Cochrane Library, CINAHL, PubMed, others
  - Design search strategy that optimizes value of selected databases and their features
  - Use thesaurus terms whenever possible
  - Select limits
  - Review results; modify
3. Evaluate the research evidence using established criteria regarding scientific merit
  - Criteria for critical appraisal of qualitative students (under qualitative EB Nursing
    - [Source: University of Minnesota Evidence Based Nursing page]
4. Choose interventions and justify the selection with the most valid evidence

Evidence-Based Practice Databases

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality is a Federal agency whose mission is to improve the quality of healthcare and promote evidence-based decision making. Includes a collection of Evidence Reports.
CINAHL
The leading research database for nursing. This database includes a number of Evidence Based Care Sheets which can be access by clicking "Evidence Based Care Sheets" on the top of the search screen. There is also a limit box to limit articles to evidence-based practice.
ClinicalTrials.gov
ClinicalTrials.gov is a registry of federally and privately supported clinical trials conducted in the United States and around the world. ClinicalTrials.gov gives you information about a trial's purpose, who may participate, locations, and phone numbers for more details. This information should be used in conjunction with advice from health care professionals.
National Guideline Clearinghouse
A public resource for evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. The NGC is an initiative of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

PubMed This link opens in a new window
This search system provides access to the PubMed database of bibliographic information, which is drawn primarily from MEDLINE, which indexes articles from about 3,900 journals covering the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, etc. In addition, for participating journals that are indexed selectively for MEDLINE, PubMed includes all articles from that journal, not just those that are included in MEDLINE. PubMed also includes journal articles from other NLM databases.
PubMed is a free resource supporting the search and retrieval of biomedical and life sciences literature with the aim of improving health–both globally and personally.

Available to the public online since 1996, PubMed was developed and is maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), located at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Evidence-Based Practice Journals

Advances in Nursing Science

Click on the journal title to access the online full text for the journal.

Applied Nursing Research
(0897-1897 Science Direct)
BMJ Evidence - Based Medicine
Dec 1995 (Vol. 1, no. 1) - present (delayed 6 months)
Journal of Nursing Scholarship
more...less...
HBU has online access from 1998 to the present on Proquest.
Nursing Research
Evidence-Based Nursing
Jan 1998 (Vol. 1, no. 1) - present (delayed 12 months)

Important Evidence-Based Practice Books

Essentials of nursing research : appraising evidence for nursing practice / by Denise F. Polit, Cheryl Tatano Beck.
Call Number: RT81.5.P63 2014
ISBN: 9781451176797
Evidence-based medicine and the search for a science of clinical care / by Jeanne Daly.
Call Number: R723.7.D356 2005
ISBN: 0520243161
Evidence-based practice in nursing & healthcare : a guide to best practice / by Bernadette Mazurek Melnyk and Ellen Fineout-Overholt.
Call Number: RT42.M44 2005
ISBN: 0781744776
Introduction to evidence-based practice in nursing and health care / by [edited by] Kathy Malloch, Tim Porter-O'Grady.
Call Number: RT42.I584 2010
ISBN: 0763765422
Nursing diagnosis handbook : an evidence-based guide to planning care / by Betty J. Ackley, Gail B. Ladwig.
Call Number: RT48.6.A35 2017
ISBN: 9780323085496
Nursing research : generating and assessing evidence for nursing practice / by Denise F. Polit, Cheryl Tatano Beck.
Call Number: RT81.5.P64 2017
ISBN: 9781605477084
Nursing research : methods and critical appraisal for evidence-based practice / by [edited by] Geri LoBiondo-Wood, Judith Haber. 8th ed.
Call Number: RT81.5.N8665 2014
ISBN: 9780323100861
Psychiatric mental health nursing : concepts of care in evidence-based practice / by Mary C. Townsend.
Call Number: RC440.T693 2015 (also ebrary)
ISBN: 9780803640924
Understanding nursing research : building an evidence-based practice / by Nancy Burns, Susan K. Grove.
Call Number: RT81.5.B863 2015
ISBN: 9781455770601
Users' guides to the medical literature [electronic resource] : a manual for evidence-based clinical practice / by [edited by] Drummond Rennie ... [et al.].
Call Number: Ebsco R723.7 .U84 2008
ISBN: 0071590358