An Analysis of Evidence-Based Practice Courses in Korean Nursing Education Systems

Background: Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) is one of the important fundamental competences required from nurses to guarantee the safety of nursing subjects, improve the quality of health management, and to standardize nursing care service. EBP is a problem-solving process incorporating best evidence, clinical expertise, and the value and preference of the patient when making a clinical decision for the patient. EBP became a common practice abroad as early as the 1990s, and it is currently used as one of the hospital accreditation standards. Conversely, it was introduced in Korea for the first time in 2004 and has been gradually employed since 2009 mainly by secondary and higher hospitals in Seoul. In reality, however, EBP practice rate is very low in clinical nursing settings in Korea. Difficulties in understanding research methods and statistics, and the lack of EBP knowledge and technology, are among the factors that hamper the employment of EBP. One of the fundamental methods to tackle these challenges is to offer curriculum that help improve EBP-related competences. Courses of this type not only deal with theoretical education, but also apply the learning content to clinical practicum. In this context, this study aims to examine the current status of EBP course and EBP-related courses in Korean nursing education systems, prior to developing clinical education courses to improve the EBP competences in Korean nursing students. EBP-related courses refer to a nursing research course and statistics course.

Method: Subject institutions were 107 universities and 64 colleges with a bachelor’s degree program accredited by the Korean Accreditation Board of Nursing Education. A database framework was developed using Microsoft Excel for data collection. Data were collected including institution name, location, course name, school grade offering the course, semester the course was opened, and credit information based on the curricula published on the website of each university or college. Two researchers independently collected the data of subject institutions and the collected data sets were cross-checked to secure data accuracy. Data from 159 institutions including 99 universities and 60 colleges were used for data analysis, excluding 12 institutions that did not publish the curriculum on their website or had missing data.

Results: EBP courses were found in 21 institutions (13.2%) out of 159, a nursing research course was available in 157 institutions (98.7%), and 79 institutions (49.7%) established a separate statistics course independent from the nursing research course. By school grade and credit, 10 institutions (47.6%) out of 21 offered EBP courses in the junior year and 11 (52.4%) in the senior year, 9 (42.9%) gave one credit, and 12 (57.1%) gave two credits. Only two institutions offered an EBP clinical practicum course. Nursing research was generally offered in higher school grades: 73 institutions (46.5%) offered a course in the senior year, 68 (43.3%) in the junior year, and 16 (10.2%) in the sophomore year. Twenty-eight (17.8%) offered a multiple-year or multiple-semester course. Four institutions (1.8%) applied the capstone design to the research course. With respect to the statistics course, 37 institutions (46.8%) offered one in the sophomore year, 18 (22.8%) in the junior year, and 12 institutions (15.2%) each in the senior year and freshman year.

Conclusion: The clinical education usually starts from the junior year in Korea. Understanding the concept of EBP and the knowledge of nursing research and statistics are both prerequisites to strengthening the EBP competences of nursing students. Therefore, it is imperative to equip them with the required knowledge prior to clinical practicum. However, few higher-education institutions offer independent EBP courses in their curricula, and most nursing research courses are available from the junior or senior years. In these circumstances, it is difficult to provide an EBP education that is effective and efficient for clinical education. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an effective educational curriculum to offer a clinical education that practically enhances the EBP competences in Korean nursing students.