READINESS OF NURSING STUDENTS AND NEW NURSING GRADUATES FOR EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE IN THE UAE

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Date
2020-03
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Publisher
The British University in Dubai (BUiD)
Abstract
ABSTRACT Background: Nurses considered EBP as the golden measure to close the gap between research and clinical practice. Globally, the nurse-researchers reported the lack of EBP knowledge and low engagement of EBP implementation behaviours among nursing students and practising nurses. In the UAE, until this time, there is a mere absence of published research addressing nursing readiness to implement EBP. Purpose: The primary purpose of the study is to investigate the nursing students’ and the new nursing graduates’ knowledge, beliefs, implementation, and confidence in EBP competencies in the UAE. Method: The descriptive, correlational, sequential explanatory mixed-method study steered from December 2018 to December 2019. The data collection completed over two different times. First, the cross-sectional survey using four questionnaires. The convenience sample followed to have 161 nursing students and new nursing graduates. The second time was the explorative qualitative method. The convenience sample used to explore the opinion of six semi-structured focus group interviews and one individual interview with a total of 26 participants. Besides, the observation sample consisted of 240 hours, while, the document analysis sample included six courses syllabi and three nursing schools program learning outcomes. Two different settings accessed, the nursing schools and the public healthcare institutions in the UAE. The novel framework adapted from the ACE Star Model and the OMRU. Key Findings: The descriptive statistics found the beginning level of knowledge with above-average confidence in EBP competencies. Besides, the participants were toward the commitment in EBP beliefs with the engagement in EBP implementation behaviours limited to 1-3 times in the last eight weeks. The new nursing graduates found to have higher knowledge while the nursing students found to have firmer beliefs and confidence in EBP competencies. However, there was a similar EBP implementation frequency among the two groups. At the same time, the inferential statistics showed a significant negative correlation between the respondents’ EBP knowledge and confidence in EBP competencies. Also, a significant positive correlation between EBP beliefs, confidence and implementation. In contrast, there were no significant differences in EBP implementation between nursing students and new nursing graduates. Besides, the participants’ demographics found to cause no effect on EBP beliefs. Nevertheless, there is a significant effect of the age and clinical experience on the knowledge and implementation of EBP. The qualitative findings supported the quantitative results and provided a further exploration of the phenomena of interest which lead to enriching the findings and unpacking the barriers and facilitators of EBP. Conclusion: There are many opportunities to enhance the knowledge and implementation of EBP among nursing students and new nursing graduates in the UAE. Any organisation would benefit from adopting an EBP model and work on assessing the barriers to and support of EBP. The implications were toward incorporating EBP in the undergraduate nursing curriculum; to have a mandatory EBP competency; to work on overcoming the barriers, and on conducting further research studies.
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Keywords
Health education -- Study and teaching., nursing students, new graduate nurses, United Arab Emirates (UAE)
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