Evidence Based Nursing Practice: Importance, Principles, Challenges and Strategies

Running head: EVIDENCE BASED NURSING PRACTICE
EVIDENCE BASED NURSING PRACTICE
Name of Student
Name of University
Author’s Note

EVIDENCE BASED NURSING PRACTICE1
To ensure the evidence based practice (EBP) of the nurses, an increased amount of
pressure is put on the nurses in the 21st century. In order to achieve the excellent outcomes of the
patient and delivering high quality of health care, the evidence based practicing of nurse is
widely recognized (Babcock & Thonus, 2018). According to different studies, the evidence
based practicing have many benefits like improved safety, cost effective results, enhanced health
and patient has reduced rates of morbidity and mortality (Holmqvist, Philips & Barkham, 2015).
The optimal healthcare outcomes are only achieved when the nurses have the adequate
knowledge to find, utilize and critically appraise the evidence which is best suited for the clinical
practice, along with the behavior and confidence of patients towards their healthcare
professionals, which boost the efficiency of the treatment (Cameron, 2017). With the availability
of various scientific based practices, the evidence based practicing of nurses is still facing some
challenges and difficulties. The main objective of this essay is to understand the importance of
evidence based practicing by nurses by defining it and by analyzing the principles of the practice,
including its procedure and discussing about the various challenges and difficulties faced by the
healthcare professionals, nurses while implementing the practice in a unit of kidney transplant.
The term evidence based practicing implies the utilization of prevailing scientific
evidences during the process of making decisions in order to provide efficient patient care (Cook
& Odom, 2013). This is an area of approach to make clinical decisions with the influence of
research evidences. The abilities of the healthcare providers like their expertise and critical
thinking, is combined with the research evidence and is then involved in the practice (DiCenso,
Guyatt & Ciliska, 2014). By defining EBP, one will be able to understand that the agenda behind
the practice is not the research related journals or publications but it also involves the integrated
judgments and clinical expertise of the healthcare providers (Harvey & Kitson, 2015). However,

EVIDENCE BASED NURSING PRACTICE2
the presence of certain factors like cultural and clinical also helps in the decision-making
procedure. In a non-English speaking society, the resources have limited access and for using,
the blood products, the associated cultural beliefs, are the example, how these factors impact.
This is the reason why, the patient’s requirements are prioritized in the evidence based practicing
(Hauck, Winsett & Kuric, 2013).
Almost all the disciplines of the health like medical intervention, allied health, public
health and nursing, are researched proactively, in order to find an effective way of evidence
based practicing (LoBiondo-Wood & Haber, 2017). The different ways like keeping tracks of the
team, effective learning from research studies, which are relevant, utilizing the knowledge of
clinical practice, are immensely time consuming. For this reason, the different tools are used to
help efficient evidence based practicing (Melnyk et al., 2014). The EBP is quietly a structured
process, involving seven steps:
 Inquiry’s spirit cultivation
 Assessing the required information into questions, which will help them find the evidence
which is relevant
 In order to answer the question, look for the finest evidence
 The clinical usefulness, reliability and validity of the found evidence is appraised
efficiently
 Prioritizing the patient’s needs, values, beliefs and requirements and infusing it with the
healthcare provider’s area of expertise, thereby implementing the final results in the
clinical practice
 Assessment of the clinical practice’s outcomes

EVIDENCE BASED NURSING PRACTICE3
 Circulating the changes or decisions of the evidence based practicing (Schwartz et al.,
2013)
Besides the critical behavior of the inquiry’s, spirit cultivation in the culture of the
healthcare, the step results in comforting the healthcare providers, in order to ask questions
regarding the treatment of their patients along with the ability to challenge the current practices
like the attitude towards consistent questioning (Boswell et al., 2015). With the adoption of the
culture in the evidence based practicing, the spirit of inquiry is extensively enhanced and
promoted by embedding in the hospital’s mission and philosophy (Stokke et al., 2014). The
minute the nurses start questioning their patients, the evidence based practicing starts like
clarifying about the way the patient in a kidney transplant with BK infections will be given
intravenous immunoglobulin and enquiring about the patient weight for immunosuppressed
patients or the standard guidelines (Straus et al., 2018).
Conversion of the acquired information into the relevant formatted questions is the next
step. PICOT is the most common format used in the principles of the health care. The format is
designed in way to account the interests of patient population (P), by defining the area of interest
or interventions (I) and lastly generating the comparisons group or interventions (C), outcome of
states (O) and time (T) (Elias et al., 2015). For patients of kidney transplant with BK infections,
the best way to enquire about the rate of intravenous immunoglobulin based on the patient’s
weight is “In kidney transplant patient with BK infection (population), giving IVIG at patient
weight (intervention) compared with standard guidelines (comparison) affect the chances of
thromboembolic events (outcome) during a six-month period (time)?”