[Research and evaluation of Internet resources for the practice and teaching of nursing]

Recent changes in the Italian health care system are causing a complex redefinition of the traditional principles of nursing. Among the new principles that are being proposed, the implementation of a clinical practice based on the evidence generated by the medical research community appears to be prominent. However, objective time constraints in finding and evaluating the available information have often hampered the achievement of this highly desirable goal. In this perspective, exploitation of the intrinsic quickness of the internet-based information retrieval systems has the potential to effectively circumvent the problem. To provide nurses with a proper training in a timely search and evaluation of on-line data, we have designed and developed a guide to those websites providing clinical information. This guide consists of (1) reviews of existing websites, and (2) proposal of a standardized model for selection, evaluation, and description of existing and newly appearing websites. We believe that this guide might increase the capability of nurses to effectively exploit the medical and scientific information resources available on the net.