Methods: Journal Club is held monthly at the same time and location with reminder notices and the feature article disseminated 1- month prior. Facilitated by two Clinical Nurse Specialists, topics are determined by practice priorities and staff recommendations. The Journal Club is implemented by: surveying for best time; maintaining consistent time and location; advertising; and inviting guest speakers. Guest discussants provide provocative and in-depth discussion of a selected article. CNE credits are provided to nurses. The literature-based objectives of the Journal Club were evaluated using a 15 - item survey administered to participants and two open-ended questions.
Results: Within the past 24 months, mean attendance per meeting was 7, range was 3 to 10. A total of 6/6 available participants completed the survey. A 4-point Likert Scale was used with: 1= strongly disagree; 4= strongly agree (higher scores equaling higher satisfaction). The mean satisfaction score was 3.7/4. For item 5, “I feel my overall knowledge about EBP/research has increased by attending Journal Clubs” the mean score was 3.7/4. For the open-ended question, “Why do you choose to attend Journal Club?” the responses were: “great educational delivery model”; “I love this way of learning”; it helps me to provide the best care for my patients” “the people and knowledge obtained”; and “to learn and keep updated knowledge”. For the open-ended question, “What do you like about the Journal Club?” the response was “the topics are in just the right time for the clinical uses which is very instrumental”.
Conclusions: Results indicate nurses’ satisfaction with Journal Club, and an increased attainment of overall knowledge about EBP/Research. The effectiveness of Journal Clubs on supporting evidence-based clinical decision making is not clearly evident. A different approach is needed to evaluate the impact of a Journal Club on use of EBP/Research in clinical practice.