Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education in Nursing - Essay Example

Essay In the modern health care environment, where scientific knowledge base of nursing expands at a great pace every day, there is a fundamental requirement on the part of the nurses to make the best use of scientific investigations to improve their clinical practices. It has been often maintained about the clinical practice in nursing that there is a gratuitous postponement of the application of new knowledge, which is available through the expanding scientific knowledge base of nursing, to practice. While all the nurses are not expected to be researchers, it is indubitable that all of them need nursing research in order to inform their nursing practice and to be able to provide safe and effective nursing care derived from the best available evidence. It is usually the nurses in clinical settings who are the projected users of research findings of the scientific researches in the area. Due to the inefficient research utilization of the research findings in nursing, many often the patients are unable to gain the best and most effective health care in clinical practices. Significantly, there is a drastic change in the way the health care professionals including the individual practitioners and clinical managers systematize and deliver care to the patients. Therefore, it is most essential to these health care professionals to find and apply new health care knowledge. “Nursing research improves the practice of nursing and raises the standards for the profession. Involvement in nursing research takes place in designing studies, being part of a research, collecting data, using research findings to change clinical practice, improving client outcomes and maintaining the cost of health care. Promoting research and research utilisation in practice increases the scientific knowledge base for nursing practice. With the scope of practice constantly expanding for nurses, it is of importance that Enrolled Nurses are familiar with research process, so that they can continue to provide quality care to their clients.” (Funnell, Lawrence, Koutoukidis, and Tabbner 2004, P. 48). In this setting, it is fundamental to comprehend how the nurses working in the clinical setting can ensure that their practice is based on the best available evidence. It is also important to realise the various strategies that nurses in the clinical setting can utilise to enhance the incorporation of research findings to provide safe nursing care. Therefore, research utilisation, which refers to the conversion of the scientific knowledge that has been generated by research into clinical practice, is an important measure to improve the efficiency of nurses in clinical practice and there are several strategies to enhance the nurses in the clinical setting in utilising the research findings to provide safe nursing care. There are various ways for the clinical practitioners in gaining knowledge and the most important source of knowledge to them is research. In several professional circles, research is considered as essential for the continuous development of the scientific body of knowledge. In fact, evidence-based practice in nursing aims at offering quality and cost-effective health care to the health consumer which is guaranteed by the research utilization. “Research provides a solid foundation on which health care professionals base their practice. The scientific knowledge base for professional health care practice is developed through scholarly inquiry of the research literature, use of existing research findings, and the actual conduct of research. There are many other reasons why nurses should implement research findings. Using research increases the quality of nursing care and provides increased efficiency in patient care, as well as personal and professional growth for nurses. Most nurses are required by individual governments to work in accordance with scientific knowledge.” (Research Utilization in Nursing 2008). In short, research has a permanent and most essential validity in the profession of nursing and the patients and their relatives increasingly expect nurses to incorporate research findings into their everyday practice. In the greatly challenging and changing health care industry, the role of the research findings in determining the quality of the service offered to the patients is indubitable. The nurses in clinical practice are offered an essential way to make the best of the scientific progress through research findings and the utilisation of these scientific research findings is essential. Research utilisation or the process of transferring of the scientific knowledge that has been generated by research into clinical practice contributes heavily to the improvement of patient care and the advancement of discipline in nursing. The classic research utilization project report indicates that research utilization is the process of systematically integrating the findings of completed nursing research studies into clinical nursing practice. In the process of research utilization, the emphasis is on using existing data (findings) from previous nursing research studies to modify a current nursing practice... Nursing research utilization is a step-by-step process incorporating critical thinking and decision making to ensure that a change in practice has a sound basis in nursing science.”( Zerwekh and Claborn 2006, P. 574). Over the last several decades, there have been discussions on the necessity of using research findings in clinical practices. However, there have been very limited initiatives in clinical or nursing education settings. There have been certain particularly important strategies to enhance the nurses in the clinical setting in utilising the research findings to provide safe nursing care. “The first research utilization models were developed in the 1970s, beginning with the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education in Nursing (WCHEN) Regional Program for Nursing Research Development. Other models included the Conduct and Utilization of Research in Nursing (CURN) project, the Stetler/Marram model, the lowa model of research in practice, and the retrieval and application of research in nursing (RARIN) model.” (Fitzpatrick and Wallace 2006, PP. 524-5). Therefore, there are several effective strategies to offer the practitioners in offering the clients a better health care. An important strategy to enhance research use and change current practice through research utilisation in the modern nursing practice is to identify the various essential barriers and then apply modified interventions which aim at reducing the barriers. The BARRIERS scale is used in nursing in order to identify the observations of the nurses regarding barriers to research utilization. “A great proportion of RNs working in the care of older people perceived several barriers to research utilization. The barriers mainly concerned the characteristics of the organization and the presentation and accessibility of research findings. The RNs also reported the lack of knowledgeable colleagues as a major barrier. To enhance research use in the care of older people, strategies should focus on organizational issues, including supportive leadership by the unit managers and collaboration between colleagues, staff, and physicians... On a methodological base, the BARRIERS scale appears to be useful to identify some types of barriers to research utilisation, but identified barriers are general and wide-ranging, making it difficult to design useful specific interventions.” (Boström, Kajermo, Nordström, and Wallin 2008) Therefore, the BARRIERS scale is an important strategy to identify the most essential barriers to research utilisation which can, in turn, lead to effective implementation of the research findings in clinical practice. As mentioned before, there are several significant strategies which offer the practitioners in offering the clients a better health care. However, the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education in Nursing (WCHEN) is considered as one of the most effective strategies, which has a lasting relevance in clinical practice. “The WCHEN model was focused on cross- organizational planning and enhancing the value for research utilization. Nurses from a variety of clinical agencies were provided with 3 days of research training. Each clinician would identify a clinical problem, review the research in that area, and develop a plan for implementing and evaluating the outcomes of the practice change.” (Fitzpatrick and Wallace 2006, PP. 525). In fact, the initial WCHEN work group also helped in the annual Communicating Nursing Research conferences which emphasised on the dissemination of research results across academic and nursing service settings. Other significant models in research utilisation include the Conduct and Utilization of Research in Nursing (CURN) project, the Stetler/Marram model, the lowa model of research in practice, and the retrieval and application of research in nursing (RARIN) model. The outcome results of all these models as well as the other essential models in research utilisation are usually limited. There are several barriers to transferring research based knowledge into nursing practice. “Staff nurses reported the following as barriers to research utilization: (a) insufficient skills and knowledge about evaluating research, (b) lack of awareness or access to research, (c) minimal value of research for practice, (d) insufficient authority to actually change practice, (e) insufficient time to read research and to learn research skills and how to implement changes when necessary, (f) lack of cooperation and support from administration and other staff, (g) little personal benefit, (h) unclear and unhelpful statistical representation of results, (i) few replication studies to determine if sufficient evidence exists to change practice, and (j) lack of access to databases and research literature.” (Fitzpatrick and Wallace 2006, PP. 525). According to recent research findings, multifaceted professional development is an essential strategy to enhance research utilization capacity among the clinical practitioners. The importance of research-based practice in nursing is always maintained by the professional, academic, and regulatory leaders in occupational therapy, as well as the payers of occupational therapy services. By providing supporting evidence, and in particular, relevant systematic research, the clinical practitioners can maintain professional credibility as the basis for their clinical practices. The use of multifaceted professional development in enhancing research utilization capacity among the clinical practitioners has been maintained in several important studies. “Recent studies in occupational therapy and in other health professions have suggested that certain conditions, including participation in professional activities may influence a practitioner’s development of skills for research utilization. Confidence in skills to acquire, critically analyze, and utilize the research has been reported as higher among health care professionals who: (1) were recent graduates, (2) attained a master’s degree, (3) worked in urban practice settings or university affiliated centres, (4) attended professional meetings, (5) participated in research activities, (6) were computer literate, (7) had library access, and (8) authored paper...” (Craik and Rappolt 2006). Therefore, one of the most important strategies of enhancing research utilization capacity among the clinical practitioners is the multifaceted professional development among the practitioners. Research utilisation became an important buzz word during the 1980s and 1990s and various changes in nursing education and nursing research were prompted by the desire to improve knowledge base in nursing practice. “These changes, coupled with the completion of several large research utilization projects, played a role in sensitizing the nursing community to the desirability of using research as a basis for practice: the changes were not enough, however, to lead to widespread integration of research findings into the delivery of nursing care. Research utilization, as the nursing community has come to recognize, is a complex and nonlinear phenomenon that poses professional challenges.” (Polit and Beck 2005, P. 459). Therefore, research utilisation has an essential role in the effective and successful clinical practice of the nurses. In conclusion, various strategies of research utilisation help the practicing nurses to convert the research findings into effective clinical practices. Bibliography BOSTRÖM, Anne-Marie., KAJERMO, Kerstin Nilsson., NORDSTRÖM, Gun., and WALLIN, Lars. (2008). [online]. “Barriers to research utilization and research use among registered nurses working in the care of older people: Does the BARRIERS Scale discriminate between research users and non-research users on perceptions of barriers?” Implementation Science. Last Accessed 28 April 2009 at: http://www.implementationscience.com/content/3/1/24 CRAIK, J., & RAPPOLT, S. (2006). [online]. Enhancing research utilization capacity through multifaceted professional development. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 60, 155–164. Last Accessed 28 April 2009 at: http://www.otevidence.info/images/Craik_2006_Enhancing.pdf FITZPATRICK, Joyce J., and WALLACE, Meredith. (2006). Encyclopaedia of nursing research. Springer Publishing Company. PP. 524-5. FUNNELL, Rita., LAWRENCE, Karen., KOUTOUKIDIS, Gabrielle., and TABBNER, A.R. (2004). Tabbner’s Nursing Care: Theory and Practice. Elsevier Australia. P. 48. POLIT, Denise F. and BECK, Cheryl Tatano. (2005). Essentials of nursing research: methods, appraisal, and utilization. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. P. 459. “Research Utilization in Nursing.” (2008). [online].Thinking Made Easy. Last Accessed 28 April 2009 at: http://ivythesis.typepad.com/term_paper_topics/2008/08/research-utiliz.html ZERWEKH, JoAnn Graham and CLABORN, Jo Carol. (2006). Nursing today: transition and trends. Elsevier Health Sciences. P. 574. Read More