The nurses perceived educational values and experience of journal club activities - A cross-sectional study in Qatar

Journal club (JC) is widely used as an educational method to support nurses in up-to-date clinical practices, acquire critical appraisal skills, and promote evidence-based nursing practice. Traditionally, JC activities were conducted as face-to-face sessions. However, after the emergence of the pandemic, many educational activities including JC turn to the online platform. This study aims to assess the perceived educational value of JC and the experience of virtual journal club (VJC) among nurses.

A cross-sectional research design was used to gather the information from the nurses using the Nursing journal club perception scale. A purposive sampling method was used to enroll 450 participants from the JC attendees of various facilities between May andAugust 2022. The data were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test and the Kruskal-Wallis test.

The data from 450 participants were analyzed with a response rate of 40.1%. The majority of the participants were females (82.4%) and belonged to the 35-44 years' age group (39.6%). Mostly, the subjects were registered nurses or midwives (78%) and had more than 5 years of clinical experience (45.8%). The mean perceived educational value of JC and VJC was 62.9 ± 8.3 and 56.3 ± 8.9, respectively. The nurse educators are holding higher educational value of JC as compared to other participants including clinical nurses, charge nurses, head nurses, and director of nurses (P = 0.03). Additionally, 90% of participants strongly agreed that the nursing journal club helps them to disseminate and reinforce evidence-based practice, update their clinical knowledge, and was very informative. Furthermore, 80% of participants agreed that educational standards, social networking, and time allocation of the VJC are enhancing the chance of attending more sessions.

The JC has a vital role in preparing nurses for promoting research culture and practicing evidence-based nursing care. The national health strategies are focused on improving research capabilities and enhancing research within the national context. The implementation of evidence-based practice in healthcare involves enhancing formal research opportunities, promoting continuing education in research, developing skills in addressing research gaps, and enhancing research-oriented cultures in healthcare facilities. The nursing leadership can play a key role to support the initiatives to develop and conduct nursing JC in their facilities to improve the nurse's research skills and evidence-based nursing practice.