Nurses' attitudes to evidence-based practice: impact of a national policy

Clinical effectiveness and evidence-based practice should be key cornerstones of current nursing practice. This study used postal questionnaires to explore the impact of a national initiative on nurses' attitudes, knowledge and practice relating to these twin concepts. Results indicated that attitudes can be influenced by national policy initiatives. Influencing behaviour, however, appears to be more difficult; no change was seen in reported application of evidence-based practice. Nurses did, however, report a desire to increase their implementation of evidence-based practice; reasons for not doing so included lack of the necessary skills and time in the working day. It is recommended that these education and training needs must be addressed by allocating sufficient protected learning time and funds. A more difficult issue relates to the burden of clinical work, which may also be preventing greater uptake of evidence-based practice.