Paper
Friday, July 13, 2007
Teaching Evidence Based Practice: easier said than done
Rien De Vos, PhD, Clinical Epidemiology and Biostats AMC, Amsterdam School of Nursing, Amsterdam School for Health Professions, Academic Medical Center Amsterdam, University of Amsterdam, Hoge School of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Background
Evidence Based Practice (EBP) has been presented as a logical solution to the current demands and shortcomings in health care. To put EBP in practice it has become clear that the required attitude and methodological skills can not be limited to a few educated key players. However to pick up EBP skills it requires a relatively high education level. One is faced with either the challenge to teach a complete multidisciplinary hospital staff, or the omit of a rather large number of health professions. Both options are not appealing. There are new insights in how – as a way of knowledge transfer- EBP should be tought in clinical settings and in undergraduate and graduate programs of health professionals.
Methods
With the essential question: “what should be learned by whom and when?” we developed a framework of three levels of EBP-attitudes and skills required in a multidisciplinary setting. In level one, wardnurses are trained in the required critical attitude in and aware of using evidence-based condensed recommendations. Wards are supported by a smaller group of (senior)nurses who have learned to search for existing guidelines and to judge the quality (level two). Few nurses (PhD) are trained more complex skills, such as performing primary research and systematic review EBP (level 3).
In the undergraduate education program EBP is not longer thought as a separate entity, but integrated as part of clinical decision making skills.
The session will focus on the general concept, the integration in daily practice at school or in the hospital, first results, and the potential pitfalls and barriers to implementation.
Conclusion
Defining subgroups within the nursing discipline, in relation to the required level of knowledge, is crucial in the implementation of EBP on (under)graduate program.