Longtime nurse managers or directors are the biggest barriers to implementing new evidence-based care practices, a survey finds.
The longer a registered nurse has worked in the healthcare industry, the less likely he or she is to have confidence try evidenced-based approaches to care, according to results of a survey of 1,000 registered nurses. However, nurses who have had more education, such as those with bachelors or masters degrees, are more likely to be open to evidence-based practices, Ohio State University researchers asserted. When respondents were asked to rank barriers to evidence-based care, nurses ranked resistance from nurse managers as their top complaint.
In this survey, evidence-based practices mean making decisions about patient care based on evidence produced through trials and studies. For example, it’s common for physicians to prescribe antidepressants for mild-to-moderate depression, even though studies have shown that psychotherapy is more effective than medication.
“When new graduates who have learned to take an evidence-based approach to care are meeting these nurses in real-world settings, they encounter this prevalence of a ‘this is the way we do it here’ culture,” lead investigator Bernadette Melnyk, Ph.D., R.N., said.
“It’s going to be a long haul until every clinician in this country consistently delivers evidence-based care,” she said.
The Institute of Medicine has said 90% of all patient-care decisions should be based on evidence by 2020. The research was published in the September issue of the Journal of Nursing Administration.
