[Evidence-based nursing--the missing link between research and practice]

Evidence-based nursing (EBN) is being introduced promising to professionalize and emancipate nursing. Three questions are discussed as to whether this can be accomplished. The analysis comes to the following conclusions: Evidence-based nursing (EBN) as a problem solving process will become part of the German health care service by means of social legislation. The concept joins clinical experience and best evidence under the principle of patient adapted intervention. This complies with the demand for rationally justified, transparent, and economically comparable performance. One specific trait of research in nursing is the importance of qualitative methods that make the dimension of subjective meaning comprehensible. Only under a normative paradigm can the concept of evidence-based intervention be applied immediately. This leads to problems of adaptation that have to be solved when introducing EBN. Evidence-based nursing practice fits into modern concepts of professional nursing as well as into current visions regarding the reform of German nursing education. However, some peculiarities that characterize German nursing practice in particular must be taken into consideration. This includes the professional ideology of nursing staff as well as applied nursing science, which is still in its beginnings.

With careful implementation the concept of evidence-based intervention can develop its potential to improve nursing practice. Further, EBN offers Germany an opportunity to catch up with international standards.