Barriers to achieve the goal of evidence based practice in the workplace are limited skills in literature searching, understanding evidence, time in the workplace to search or read articles, inability to understand statistical terms, and training programs to teach how to research in practice (Stevens, 2013).
The development to provide evidence based practice is based on the increasing public and professional demand for healthcare to be accountable for the safety, and quality of care, and improve patient outcomes (Stevens, 2013). Therefore, EBP unifies research evidence with clinical expertise and encourages individualization of care through inclusion of patient preferences (Stevens, 2013).
Knowledge and beliefs about implementing evidence based practice is a barrier that is important to consider, because attitudes can affect either positive or negative outcomes about the use of EBP (Majid, Foo, Luyt, Zhang, Theng, Chang, Mokhtar, 2011). How the nurses familiarity with the principles about the interventions to provide EBP, plays a big part in how these changes are perceived (Majid et al, 2011).
If nurses are confident in their capabilities to achieve the goals set out to provide EBP, they are more likely to embrace the changes and overcome the obstacles, and will be more acceptable to change and help implement and create changes in the workplace with EBP (Stevens, 2013).
By engaging nurses in the planning of the implementation of EBP, adapting strategies to accomplish the goals, and provide training and mentoring to execute the changes which can bring about a more positive belief pattern and thus better outcomes in achieving the goals in practice, set about by recommendations by the Institute of Medicine (Majid et al, 2011).
Training along with generating a supportive environment for the nurse to learn, and feel comfortable giving input, will allow a more positive participation attitude from staff (Stevens, 2013). Organizations should find ways to bring training to the nursing staff, instead of asking them to go outside of their workplace for training.
Implementing mentors to serve as role models, and give valuable input throughout the training, can positively influence attitudes from staff, and bring about positive beliefs about training and changes with the use of EBP (Stevens, 2013). Having leaders that are enthusiastic about training, and reaching the goals has been shown to have better outcomes, and changes the attitudes from nurses that might otherwise be resistant to changes.
Evidence based practice benefits everyone in healthcare, which is standardizing care for patients based on what is shown to give the best quality of care, and lower cost (Stevens, 2013). By implementing EBP, nurses can truly improve patient outcomes and prove their knowledge about what works, and what has been proven not to work with the use of evidence based practice in the workplace, and this will help improve patient care.
Majid, S., Foo, S., Luyt, B., Zhang, X., Theng, Y.-L., Chang, Y.-K., & Mokhtar, I. A. (2011). Adopting evidence-based practice in clinical decision making: nurses' perceptions, knowledge, and barriers. Journal of the Medical Library Association?: JMLA, 99(3), 229-236.
Stevens, K. (May 31, 2013) "The Impact of Evidence-Based Practice in Nursing and the Next Big Ideas" OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing Vol. 18, No. 2, Manuscript 4.