Description/Overview: The purpose of this symposium is to share with STTI 42nd Biennial Convention attendees a unique collaborative journey to write a forensic nursing book with general foreground content a requisite for all nurses in the United States and globally to use in their practice, teaching, research and leadership roles. Our systems of laws, healthcare, research, and education are based on credible evidence. The use of evidence-based interventions in any nursing practice is crucial in providing the most effective intervention that has a proximate effect on patient outcome. Evidence-based practice is the integration of the best research with clinical expertise and the patient’s unique values and circumstances. Forensic nursing is defined as the application of evidence-based forensic and nursing science, biopsychosocial knowledge, and clinical nursing skills in the investigation, collection, preservation, analyses, recording, and reporting of evidence. In the late 1990s, a textbook that comprehensively covered the principles and practice of forensic nursing could not be found. Fortunately, the International Association of Forensic Nurses and the American Nurses Association published the scope and standards of forensic nursing practice in 1997. Then, Virginia Lynch’s Forensic Nursing with its breadth and depth, was published in 2006. Knowing that there exists a critical need by forensic nursing students, educators, and researchers not only for background but foreground information accompanied by translation-to-nursing practice evidence-based interventions, we sought collaborators from all walks of nurses to contribute to: Forensic Nursing: Evidence-based Principles and Practice. In this symposium, we present selected substantive content of forensic nursing practice to exemplify the product of an interprofessional collaborative journey in search of essential forensic nursing knowledge applicable to any clinical nursing practice. We will provide an overview of indispensable forensic nursing facts for today’s practicing nurse and end our session with a summary of collaborative forensic nursing practice-in-action with audience participation.

Learner Objective #1: Describe the process of collaboration in developing practice, teaching, research, and leadership for nurses.

Learner Objective #2: Define forensic nursing as it relates to all areas of nursing practice.