Conference Proceedings - School of Nursing & Midwifery - Trinity ...

School of Nursing & Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin: 8 th Annual Interdisciplinary Research Conference
Transforming Healthcare Through Research, Education & Technology: 7 th – 9 th November 2007
Conference Proceedings
Analysis: Qualitative data were transcribed and analysed using
nVIVO software. SPSS software was employed to analyse
quantitative data.
Findings: The results indicated that the use of research has
increased over the past five years. Nevertheless, a large number of
respondents (49%) felt that less than half of their practice was
research based.
Despite the favourable views of participants towards research
information and evidence based practice, they relied heavily on
their own experience and that of their nursing colleagues and were
far more likely to access those sources than all others. When
accessing research based information in particular, they were more
likely to use research that was channelled to them through for
example, study days, clinical nurse specialists and practice
development co-coordinators, than that which they sourced and
evaluated themselves directly. The reasons were complex involved
the characteristics of information sources which were related to the
availability of the source, the skills required for use, support in the
local environment and at organisational level, and the value
assigned by an individual nurse to the source. Other important
themes emerged in relation to the feasibility of integrating
information from a source into nursing practice which was
dependent on the power of nurses’ to initiate change and their
desire to do so.
Conclusions: For research information to be an integral part of
nursing practice, an environment has to exist where there is an
expectation that research information should be used and there are
facilities and support to do so. Additionally, nurses should have the
skills and autonomy required. A challenge exists to introduce
research findings into the nursing workplace in a form that is easily
accessible and utilisable. Dissemination of changes should be active
and multifaceted with input from practitioners.
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