Nurses' intention to apply clinical practice guidelines

Using Ajzen and Madden's Theory of Planned Behavior, this study investigates factors which influence nurses' intention to apply clinical practice guidelines in their daily ward work. A convenience sample of 91 nurses in internal medicine wards in three Israeli hospitals answered four questionnaires. Data were processed by Pearson correlation coefficients and multivariate regression. The main findings were that burnout was negatively correlated with the intention to work according to guidelines and that professionalism (in the sense of a tendency to follow taught procedure rather than personal judgment) was positively correlated with it. Furthermore, nurses who perceive their behavioral control and subjective norms to be positive will be the most determined to work according to guidelines, provided they personally command the necessary resources to do so.