What is Evidence-Based Practice?
Evidence-based practice, or EBP, is about translating evidence and applying it to clinical decision-making. The purpose of evidence-based practice is to use the best evidence available to make patient-care decisions. Evidence-based practice goes beyond using research and includes clinical expertise and patient preferences and values. The use of evidence-based practice takes into consideration that sometimes the best evidence is that of opinion leaders and experts, even though there are no definitive results from research.
The evidence-based practice process has seven critical steps:
- Cultivate a spirit of inquiry.
- Ask a burning clinical question.
- Collect the most relevant and best evidence.
- Critically appraise the evidence.
- Integrate evidence with clinical expertise, patient preferences, and values in making a practice decision or change.
- Evaluate the practice decision or change.
- Disseminate evidence-based practice results.
Conner, B. T. (2014). Differentiating research, evidence-based practice, and quality improvement. American Nurse Today, 9 (6). Retrieved from https://www.americannursetoday.com/differentiating-research-evidence-based-practice-and-quality-improvement/
Helpful Library databases
- CINAHL Complete This link opens in a new window
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An expanded version of the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health. Provides citations and abstracts for over 5,400 nursing journals, as well as books, conferences, software, and audiovisual material. Provides the full text for over 1,300 of those journals. - Gale Health and Wellness This link opens in a new windowMillions of articles covering nursing and allied health from 2,500 embargo-free, full-text journals, magazines, newsletters, reference books, and pamphlets, plus hundreds of videos demonstrating medical procedures and live surgeries.
- Gale OneFile: Health and Medicine This link opens in a new windowFormerly Health Reference Center: Academic.
Integrated collection of medical and professional periodicals, general interest health and fitness magazines, medical references and pamphlets. Designed for nursing and allied health students. More than 14,000 full-text publications, over 5,000 of which are peer-reviewed journals. - Gale Academic OneFile This link opens in a new windowIndexing of more than 11,000 peer-reviewed journals and full text of more than 8,000, with coverage in such subject areas such as, biology, chemistry, criminal justice, economics, environmental science, history, marketing, political science, and psychology.
- MEDLINE (ProQuest) This link opens in a new windowBibliographic database produced by the U.S. National Library of Medicine. With coverage from 1946 to the present, the database contains millions of citations, derived from thousands of biomedical and life science journals, and indexed with Medical Subject Headings (MeSH®) from the NLM controlled vocabulary.
The database contains a broad range of medical topics relating to research, clinical practice, administration, policy issues, and health care services.
Subject content includes anatomy; communication disorders; microbiology; paramedical professions; pathology; physiology; psychiatry; toxicology; dentistry; parasitology; reproductive biology; epidemiology; gene therapy; surgical and pharmaceutical intervention; nursing practice; ethical and legal issues; institutional operations; laboratory techniques and procedures; diagnosis and management; clinical research trials and experimental treatment protocols; legislation and regulation; allied health specialties; continuing education; investigational drugs and new drug uses, and some veterinary medicine. - Ovid This link opens in a new windowFull-text of articles from 81 journals, principally from Ovid's Nursing Collections I and II, as well as some sports and exercise journals and a few others.
- ScienceDirect This link opens in a new windowBroad science coverage, emphasizing life sciences, health sciences, engineering, earth sciences, agriculture, and pharmacology. Full text from over 3800 journals and chapters from over 5300 books. Also includes business, management and accounting; economics, econometrics and finance, and social science.
- UpToDate This link opens in a new windowSpecific, detailed answers to clinical questions in nursing, sports and exercise sciences, communication disorders, and psychology. Original content that is written, reviewed and continually updated by a faculty of more than 5,100 leading physicians. Content includes over 9,500 topics in 21 specialties, a drug database and drug interactions program, 135 Medical calculators, What’s New (summary of important new findings by specialty), and patient education materials.
- Gale eBooks This link opens in a new windowFull-text, searchable access to more than 175 specific encyclopedias in many subjects, including business, social sciences, history, biography, religion, popular culture, and much more.
- ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global This link opens in a new window
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Provides full text for over 1.7 million dissertations and masters theses from U.S. and international academic institutions and abstracting and indexing for 3.8 million.
Useful Web Sources
The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) Position Statements and White Papers publicly express the AACN's views on important issues, emerging trends, and other areas of common interest. Positions statements represent the official view of AACN, and require a vote by the membership. White papers are developed for issues that are currently evolving and for which no clear statement of position is currently evident. (An Overview of AACN Public Statements has more information on the different types of documents.)
Institutional Review Board (IRB) Training. West Texas A&M University requires all individuals (faculty, staff, and students) conducting or participating in research projects that involve human subjects to complete training for the Protection of Human Subjects.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has great information on diseases and conditions, health living, travelers' health, emergency preparedness, and more.
The World Health Organization (WHO) also has great information on a number of different health topics, including disease outbreaks. You may want to check out Disease Outbreak News for the latest news on current disease outbreaks.