Evidence-Based Practice Process: Steps, Importance, and Application

This report provides a comprehensive overview of the evidence-based practice (EBP) process, a critical approach in healthcare for making informed decisions about patient care. The report outlines the key steps of EBP, including asking clinical questions, searching for the best evidence, critically appraising the evidence, integrating evidence with clinical expertise, evaluating outcomes, and disseminating findings. Each step is thoroughly explained, emphasizing its importance in improving patient outcomes and ensuring the use of the most current and effective clinical practices. The report highlights the role of nurses and other healthcare professionals in applying EBP, referencing databases like PubMed, MEDLINE, and CINAHL, and stressing the importance of patient preferences and treatment costs. Finally, the report stresses the importance of self-evaluation and continuous improvement in EBP.

Running head: EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE
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Evidence-based practice process
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

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Steps of the evidence-based practice process and their importance
Evidence-based practice process (EBP) refers to judicious use of the recent best proves in
making decisions about the health care of a patient. The EBP keep nurses updated. This proves
are acquired from clinical evidences from various researches. It has various advantages. For
instance, providing the best care available. Hence, improved patient outcome is one of their main
aims. We are going to discuss the EBP steps one by one.
1. Ask a clinical guiding question
This is where the practitioner assesses the patient (Rubak, Sandbæk, Lauritzen, Borch-
Johnsen, & Christensen, 2009) . The patient presents his physical or mental symptoms.
The practitioner then designs an appropriate query that takes in consideration the
symptoms of the patient. This is so that the practitioner provides the best options to the
patient. Therefore, the patient is the source of the information.
2. Search for the best evidence
After the enquiry the practitioner then looks for resources from databases. PubMed,
MEDLINE and CINAHL are best resources for nurses. Those databases use MeSH
subject headings as the official terms to describe concepts related to medical articles.

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3. Critically appraise the evidence
Depending on the results of step 2, this process may vary. In this step you evaluate the
results of study how they relate to the patient’s case. In case you have found analyses of
primary resources then validation will be provided in the analysis.
4. Integrate the evidence with one’s clinical expertise
In this step, the nurse makes judgement on patient’s case using his previous experience.
Given EBT is customer-centered, patient preferences and cost of treatment should be
considered in order to give patients best option (McLeod, Southam‐Gerow, Tully,
Rodriguez, & Smith,2013)
5. Evaluate the outcomes of the EBP practice decision
In this step, the nurse returns the discussion to the patient. The nurse engages the patient
to give him the best medication.
6. Disseminate the outcome
This is a self-evaluation step. The practitioner examines his proficiency on his work.

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References
McLeod, B. D., Southam‐Gerow, M. A., Tully, C. B., Rodriguez, A., & Smith, M. M. (2013).
Making a case for treatment integrity as a psychosocial treatment quality indicator for
youth mental health care. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 20(1), 14-32.
Rubak, S., Sandbæk, A., Lauritzen, T., Borch-Johnsen, K., & Christensen, B. (2009). General
practitioners trained in motivational interviewing can positively affect the attitude to
behaviour change in people with type 2 diabetes: One year follow-up of an RCT,
ADDITION Denmark. Scandinavian journal of primary health care, 27(3), 172-179.