EBP Educational Programme in Nursing Students' EBP Beliefs and Knowledge, and the Extent of Their EBP Implementation

January 19, 2019 updated by: Daniela Cardoso, Escola Superior de Enfermagem de Coimbra

The Effectiveness of an Evidence Based Practice (EBP) Educational Programme in Undergraduate Nursing Students' EBP Beliefs and Knowledge, and the Extent of Their EBP Implementation: A Cluster Randomized Control Trial

Evidence-based practice (EBP) prevents unsafety/inefficiency and improves healthcare quality. However, EBP implementation and sustainment are challenging for healthcare organizations and providers considering gaps between research and practice. An educational preparation of the future healthcare professionals can minimize these gaps. Thus, it is mandatory that undergraduate curricula in health sciences, namely in nursing, promote an EBP culture so that future health professionals use it into clinical practice. Within the Portuguese context, there is no available scientific literature about the current state of EBP integration in the undergraduate nursing curricula. Thereby, the investigators intend to verify if an EBP educational programme would be successful in improving the undergraduate nursing students' EBP knowledge and beliefs and, and the extent of their EBP implementation This will be tested using a prospective cluster randomized control trial with two-armed parallel group design.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Evidence-Based Practice (EBP), also known as Evidence-Informed Practice, could be defined as a "clinical decision-making that considers the best available evidence; the context in which the care is delivered; client preference; and the professional judgment of the health professional".

It has been recognizing that the adoption, implementation and sustainment of EBP in healthcare organizations are very important to promotes high-value health care, improves the patient experience and health outcomes, and reduces health care costs.

In consequence, several organizations acclaim EBP implementation, because this implementation improves the quality of care; reduces the uncertainty, risk and variability; and becomes the decision-making more simplified. Moreover, Dawes et al at the "Sicily statement on evidence-based practice" highlighted that "all health care professionals need to understand the principles of EBP, recognize EBP in action, implement evidence-based policies, and have a critical attitude to their own practice and to evidence".

Nevertheless, nowadays EBP is not the standard of care in the world and some studies recognized education as a strategy to promotes the adoption, implementation and sustainment of EBP.

In fact, the Committee on the Health Professions Education Summit in 2003 recommended the development of competencies regarding the EBP use in all health professional educational programs. Therefore, it is important that undergraduate nursing curricula are based on EBP principles to educate the future nurses to use EBP into clinical practice. This will, consequently, improve health outcomes, with a positive impact in patients' safety, costs and health systems. Regardless of the above recommendation, the nursing curricula still provide contents related to traditional nursing research and do not integrate the EBP content and process.

Therefore, this randomized control trial aims to evaluate the effectiveness of an educational EBP programme in undergraduate nursing students' EBP beliefs and knowledge, and the extent of their EBP implementation. This study will have two arms: experimental group (EBP educational program) and control group (no intervention - education as usual) and it will have the following methodology:

  • Sample: For sample size calculation it was used the software G*Power 3.1.9.2. Power analysis was based on a type I error of 0.05; power of 0.80; effect size f=0.25; and ANOVA: repeated measures between factors determined a total sample size of 92. In a Portuguese nursing school, six optional courses of the 8th semester of the nursing graduation were randomly assigned to experimental (EBP educational programme) or control group (no intervention - education as usual). An independent researcher performed this assignment using random.org.
  • Intervention: The EBP educational programme will be implemented over 17 weeks (12 hours of lessons - expositive method and practice method and 3 sessions of mentorship to small groups of students - 2/3 students - with the duration of 2 hours each).
  • Assessment: All participants will be assessed before (week 0) and after the intervention (week 18) by a blind assessor using the validated instruments to assess undergraduate nursing students' EBP beliefs, the extent of their EBP implementation and their knowledge in EBP.
  • Data analysis: The data will be analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) to conduct a descriptive and inferential analysis. To minimize the noncompliance impact, the intention to treat analysis - Last observation carried forward will be used.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

149

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Portugal
      • Coimbra, Portugal, 3046-851
        • ESEnfC

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years to 65 years (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Undergraduate nursing students, aged 18 years or older, attending the 8th semester of the degree course in nursing at a nursing school in Portugal

Exclusion Criteria:

-

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Other
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: EBP Educational Programme
The educational EBP programme will include 12 hours of classroom lessons regarding EBP more 6 hours of mentorship made to a small groups of students (2 or 3 students per group).
Other: EBP Educational Programme
The educational EBP programme will include 12 hours of classroom lessons regarding EBP more 6 hours of mentorship made to a small groups of students (2 or 3 students per group).
No Intervention: Usual Educational Programme
Without intervention. The participants in this group will be maintain usual educational programme.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Change from Baseline in the participant's Evidence Based Practice knowledge
Time Frame: Post-intervention assessment (week 18)
Outcome measure: "Fresno Test" of Ramos, Schafer, & Tracz (2003) - adapted to nursing students and Portuguese population
Post-intervention assessment (week 18)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Change from Baseline in the participant's Evidence Based Practice beliefs
Time Frame: Post-intervention assessment (week 18)

Outcome measure: Evidence Based Practice beliefs scale of Melnyk, Fineout-Overholt, & Mays (2008) - Portuguese version.

Minimum score: 16; maximum score: 80. Higher values represent a better outcome.
Post-intervention assessment (week 18)
Change from Baseline in the participant's Evidence Based Practice implementation
Time Frame: Post-intervention assessment (week 18)

Outcome measure: Evidence Based Practice implementation scale for students of Melnyk, Fineout-Overholt, & Mays (2008) - Portuguese version.

Minimum score: 0; maximum score: 72. Higher values represent a better outcome.
Post-intervention assessment (week 18)

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Escola Superior de Enfermagem de Coimbra

Collaborators

University of Coimbra

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Daniela Cardoso, RN, UICISA: E, ESEnfC/Faculty of Medicine, University of Coimbra

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

February 14, 2018

Primary Completion (Actual)

June 22, 2018

Study Completion (Actual)

June 22, 2018

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

January 20, 2018

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

January 25, 2018

First Posted (Actual)

January 26, 2018

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

January 23, 2019

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

January 19, 2019

Last Verified

January 1, 2019

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • EBP_Educ_Nurs

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

Undecided

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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