[The nursing practice informed by research: leader training in health organizations, a promising path]

Despite the recognition by nurses of the importance of supporting their experiential knowledge on scientific data, evidence-based nursing research is seldom integrated in their practice. An important limitation is the nurses' general lack of basic abilities to use research to better inform their clinical decision making. The objective of this pilot study was to evaluate a leader training intervention on research results integration in nursing practice.

Seven advanced practice nurses and 12 clinical nurses from six care specialties jointly participated to training activities on knowledge transfer and exchange.

Nineteen nurses went through a 20-day training internship and 14 participated to two interviews, before and after the intervention.

Overall, nurses were very positive about their participation to the training. Difficulties encountered during the internship and the prior negative perception about the research process, were largely offset by the acquired capabilities and the clinical results of the intervention. Furthermore, the beginning of change in the organization and in relations with some health professionals were noted and seen as positive.