The effect of evidence‐based nursing education on nurses' clinical decision making: A randomized controlled trial

Abstract

Introduction: Nurses are the largest group of health-care providers and their clinical decisions have an essential role in patients' clinical condition. Evidence-based nursing has been proposed as a health-care method based on the latest findings and evidence. Therefore, we aimed to determine the effect of evidence-based nursing education on dialysis nurses' clinical decision-making.Material and Methods: This single-blind experimental study conducted in 2021 at dialysis wards of teaching hospitals affiliated to Urmia University of Medical Sciences. In this study, a total of 60 dialysis nurses were recruited using convenience sampling and allocated to two groups of intervention (n = 30) and control (n = 30). Data were collected at three time points of before, 1 week after, and 1 month after the intervention using a demographic questionnaire and the Lauri and Salantera Clinical Decision-Making Questionnaire (LSCD-MQ). Nurses in the intervention group received 12 sessions of evidence-based nursing education, while nurses in the control group received no intervention. Results:The results showed the mean score of clinical decision-making had a significant decreasing trend over time (p < 0.001) so that it decreased significantly 1 week after the intervention (72.83 ± 4.90) compared with before the intervention (69.5 ± 67.34) in the intervention group. Moreover, participants' decision-making moved toward analytical decision-making. The results also indicated there was a significant difference between the baseline mean score of clinical decision-making and the postintervention mean scores obtained 1 week (p = 0.025) and 1 month (p = 0.001) after the intervention.However, this difference was not found to be significant in the control group (p = 1.000). Conclusions:The study results indicate the positive effect of evidence-based education on nurses' clinical decision-making. Therefore, nurses are recommended to apply evidence-based education methods to improve their level of clinical decision-making. Health officials are also recommended to hold in-service evidencebased workshops to update nurses' knowledge.

Effectiveness of educational interventions for nurses caring for patients with chronic kidney disease in improving nurse outcomes: A systematic review

“…Nurse–patient interaction was measured through the Caring Nurse–Patient Interaction Scale (Antonini et al., 2021; Delmas et al., 2016). Performance and skills competence were measured through checklists developed by the researcher (Hassona et al., 2012) and participating hospitals (Pun et al., 2016), while clinical decision‐making was measured through the Lauri and Salantera Clinical Decision‐Making Questionnaire (Ghodsi Astan et al., 2022). Patient outcomes were analysed in one study (Delmas et al., 2016).…”

“…Training on evidence‐based practice (EBP) in groups of six and on conducting a database search are effective in encouraging more analytical levels of clinical decision‐making (Ghodsi Astan et al., 2022). Nurses understand that EBP is the use of research findings and other material written by experts to guide decision‐making.…”

“…Study characteristics presented include the title of the study, study location and design, sample size, a brief description of the intervention and control groups, measured outcomes and the scales used, pre-and post-intervention results, standardised mean differences (SMDs) and 95% confidence intervals. Three are RCTs (Antonini et al, 2021;Ghodsi Astan et al, 2022;Pun et al, 2016) while the remaining eight (Blue et al, 2011;Delmas et al, 2016;Gelmez et al, 2002;Hassona et al, 2012;Kadium, 2015;Mignott, 2022;Thompson-Martin et al, 2015;Yousif et al, 2017) are pre-experimental studies with no control group. SMDs and 95% confidence intervals were calculated using Review Manager (RevMan) Version 5.4.1 (The Cochrane Collaboration, 2020) and reported in the table unless there was missing data (Turner & Bernard, 2006).…”

“…Studies with interventions that focus on teaching nurses about how to care for CKD patients were included. Examples of such interventions include educational seminars (Blue et al, 2011) and training sessions (Ghodsi Astan et al, 2022).…”

“…Educational interventions have proven to improve nurses' knowledge and clinical decision‐making (Ghodsi Astan et al., 2022; Mignott, 2022). Some educational interventions include educational seminars and training sessions.…”