Available online 13 March 2024

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Developing evidence-based practice (EBP) skills is crucial for nurses to safely and effectively work within organizational contexts;

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Students reported significant improvements in EBP dimensions of competence, knowledge and attitudes after the EBEPA;

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Implementing teaching strategies support students in acquiring EBN competences and empower them in decision-making.

AbstractBackground

The incorporation of EBP into practice remains a challenge of the nursing profession. Several studies highlighted the limited engagement of nursing students in utilizing evidence-based practice (EBP) and their difficulty in perceiving the relevance of scientific evidence in daily practice.

Aim

This study aimed to measure the acquisition of EBP skills among nursing students following the implementation of an innovative educational intervention that connected academic settings with training environments.

Methods

To assess the effectiveness of the educational intervention, a before-after study was carried out. The EBP Competency Questionnaire scale (EBP-COQ) was used to assess student's EBP competencies before and after the educational intervention, as well as at the end of their clinical training. A repeated-measures ANOVA was performed to compare the three tests’ averages.

Results

After the educational intervention and upon completion of clinical training, students reported significant improvements in the subscales of competence, knowledge, and in the overall score.

Conclusion

Our results underline the importance of implementing teaching strategies to support students in acquiring EBP competences and empower them in decision-making.

Section snippetsBackground

Developing evidence-based practice (EBP) skills is crucial for nurses to safely and effectively take care for patients in all healthcare settings. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) in its report "Health Professions Education: A Bridge to Quality" (Health Professions Education, 2003) recognized EBP as one of the five essential competencies that healthcare professionals should possess and continually uphold throughout their professional career. Evidence-based nursing (EBN) was defined as a

Study design

A before–after study was conducted at the University of Brescia.

Participants and setting

EBPEPU was presented to a group of 44 third-year baccalaureate nursing students. Before and after the educational intervention in classroom, all the students returned the completed questionnaire. At the conclusion of the clinical internship, the completed questionnaires numbered 38. The research was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University of Brescia. The students took part voluntarily in the pilot study and

Results

The students had an average age of 24.24 ± 2.3. The majority of the students were female (96%). Tables 1 summarize the average scores obtained by the sample for each EBP-COQ item and subscale.

The lowest average scores were observed at all three time points in the knowledge subscale. Conversely, the highest average scores were observed in the attitudes subscale. After the educational intervention in classroom (T1), students reported an increase in competence (F(1,43) = 25.369, p < 0.001),

Discussion

Our study has shown that the involvement of third-year nursing students in EBPEPU led to a notable enhancement in their overall proficiency in EBP, their positive outlook towards EBP, and their grasp of EBP-related knowledge and skills. Qualitative data revealed that the educational activity was generally well-received by the students, who were largely satisfied by it. However, the sample identified room for improvement linked to online teaching, which did not always allow for direct

Declaration of competing interest

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. All the authors declare that the work has not been published before and it is not being considered for publication elsewhere. Furthermore, the authors affirm that they have no competing interest. The final manuscript was approved by all the authors.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Roberta Pendoni: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing-Original draft preparation, Resources. Ilaria Marcomini.: Conceptualization, Data curation, Writing-Original draft preparation, Visualization. Mattia Bozzetti: Conceptualization, Writing-Original draft preparation, Visualization, Investigation, Formal Analysis. Paolo Carlo Motta: WritingOriginal draft preparation, Supervision.

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Acknowledgments

This article has benefited from the contributions of the educational director of University of Brescia, course of Cremona who obtained project approbation and all nursing educators of University of Brescia, course of Cremona who provided supervision during the internship period.

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