Debra Evans is a senior lecturer at Birmingham City University, UK.
This new edition provides a straightforward guide to evidence-based practice, helping you to increase your understanding of the processes involved in accessing, appraising, synthesising, and implementing good quality research.
Providing a basic introduction to both quantitative and qualitative research, Debra Evans explores how to find out "what works best”, "how does that make someone feel”, and what requires more research. You will also learn the basic rules used in study design and statistics presented in research articles and systematic reviews, and develop the knowledge necessary to challenge practice that is not underpinned by research. Each simply written chapter includes relevant theory, diagrams and tables, hypothetical nursing scenarios, exercises, a summary, and further reading. This edition includes two new chapters that look at how to get evidence implemented into practice to meet practice goals, and provide advice and tips to help with research assignments and dissertations to meet learner goals.
Packed with examples from practice across the nursing fields and at different levels, this book is essential for nurses – both student and qualified – who want to increase their confidence when it comes to research appraisal, the research process, and evidence-based practice processes.
1. Introduction to research and evidence-based practice, Step 1: Pose a focused research question, 2. How do you put together a good, focused research question?, Step 2: Search for the evidence, 3. How do you search for evidence to answer that question?, Step 3: Critically appraise the evidence, 4. When you have found some evidence, how do you know if it´s any good?, 5. Let´s talk about the characteristics of a quantitative design – the randomised controlled trial, 6. Some non-randomised quantitative designs – quasi-experiments, cohort studies, and case-control studies, 7. What are effect measures for dichotomous outcomes, 8. What are effect measures for continuous outcomes?, 9. How do you critically appraise quantitative evidence such as RCTs?, 10. Let´s talk about characteristics of some qualitative designs – phenomenology, ethnography, and grounded theory, 11. How do you critically appraise qualitative evidence?, Step 4: Make a decision to implement the evidence, 12. Why we need systematic reviews and initiatives like the Cochrane Library, 13. Clinical guidelines, 14. Implementation – how do you meet your practice goals?, 15 How to meet your learner goals and pass research assignments and dissertations, 16. Your role in all of this?
Packed with examples from practice across the nursing fields and at different levels, this book is essential for nurses – both student and qualified – who want to increase their confidence when it comes to research appraisal, the research process and evidence-based practice processes.
"This is an excellent introductory textbook on evidence-based practice, designed to help students, nurses and multi-professional healthcare practitioners develop confidence in understanding, appraising, and applying research into clinical practice...The book presents a lot of complex theoretical information and each chapter is well described and includes a useful summary and comprehensive references to encourage wider exploration, and to ground the content in the literature. The balanced coverage of both quantitative and qualitative methodologies allows the reader to build a research question and begin to develop a literature search strategy...[It is] comprehensive, well organised and educational, and supports the development and implementation of research into modern multi-professional healthcare practice.”
- Jayne Robbie, Birmingham City University, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust and Dean of the Faculty of Podiatric Medicine, UK
"I think it is very good. You have cited all of the right people and I really like that you have focused on the behavioural elements. Great level for beginners - spot on Debra - from an implementation science perspective. Very nice indeed”
- Professor Judith Dyson, Professor in Implementation Science, Birmingham City University
