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Assessing Organizational Readiness for Evidence-Based Practice

Monday, November 2, 2009: 2:00 PM

Debra Thompson, MSN, RN, PhDc, CNAA-BC1
Helen K. Burns, PhD, RN, FAAN1
Susan Sereika, PhD2
1School of Nursing, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
2Department of Health and Community Systems, Biostatistics, and Epidemiology, SON and Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA

Presentation File (PDF Format)

Learning Objective 1: assess a multi-dimensional survey tool designed to measure nurses’ perceptions of their knowledge, attitudes, skills and institutional readiness to adopt an evidence-based practice model.

Learning Objective 2: examine the reliability and validity of a multi-dimensional assessment for evidence-based practice

Evidence-based care is a requisite of healthcare delivery in the 21st century. How nurses’ practice and their willingness to incorporate evidence into practice is influenced by multiple factors including their knowledge, expertise, attitudes, and the organizational climate where care is delivered. Organizational climate consists of employee’s perceptions of what is rewarded and valued to influence patient outcomes. Administrators and educators need reliable and valid instruments to measure nurses’ skill sets and attitudes about evidence-based practice (EBP) and their perception of the organizational climate for EBP. Without psychometrically sound measures, nursing leaders are unable to design effective EBP practice models and develop practicing nurses’ expertise in its application.

This presentation will present a secondary data analysis of a subset of 444 rural community hospital nurses demonstrating the Evidence-Based Nursing Practice Questionnaire (EBNPQ) is a psychometrically sound instrument measuring nurse’s knowledge, attitude, skills and perceptions of organizational readiness. Survey items from each dimension, along with exploratory factor analysis will be presented along with the methods used to test reliability and validity including discriminate and convergent validity using a known groups approach. Internal consistency was supported in general with Cronbach’s alphas above .701 except for organizational information in practice knowledge (Cronbach’s alpha =.660). Exploratory factor analysis revealed that each of the four dimensions was not uni-dimensional but instead consisted of two  to four  sub-dimensions As hypothesized the instrument was able to differentiate constructs between known groups. Limitations of level of education, years of experience and need for further testing of the instrument will be discussed. 

See more of: Evidence-Based Practice
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