Models of Evidence-Based Practice

Although nurses and other healthcare providers are required to follow professional standards in their actual everyday practice to ensure the high quality of services for patients, there is often a discrepancy between standards and activities. Professional standards and guidelines are important to be addressed and followed in clinical settings because they were formulated to achieve the best possible outcomes for patients (Schmidt & Brown, 2019). These standards reflect criteria for competent care, and they should influence nurses and other staff’s behaviors. However, the problem is that certain personal and organizational factors can negatively influence nurses’ practice and their realization of standards and norms. These factors include individuals’ attitudes, beliefs, work experiences, informal routines, ineffective monitoring, and others.

Still, this discrepancy between complying with standards and healthcare providers’ actual practice in a certain facility can be resolved with the help of using research. It is possible to critically apply available research for this purpose referring to the Stetler model. This model includes such stages as preparation, validation, comparative evaluation, application, and evaluation (Schmidt & Brown, 2019). These phases are important in the critical and effective use of research in order to support and promote evidence-based practice (Indra, 2018). Thus, working in any medical facility, nurses are required not only to know professional standards but also to apply them to practice. When they experience problems with addressing standards and norms they should utilize evidence from research and practice, and the evaluation and utilization of these data are possible with the help of the Stetler model. As a result, it is probable to expect that the effective use of research can help nurses address certain inconsistency in standards and practice referring to more evidence.

References

Indra, V. (2018). A review on models of evidence-based practice. Asian Journal of Nursing Education and Research, 8(4), 549-552. Web.

Schmidt, N. A., & Brown, J. M. (2019). Evidence-based practice for nurses: Appraisal and application of research (4th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.