Knowledge generation towards evidence-based practice and nursing competency

This study aims to describe the nursing competency, research knowledge and skills of nurses in Ghana regarding evidence-based practice.

This nationwide descriptive cross-sectional survey was conducted among 480 clinical nurses and nurse educators from both private and public institutions. Nurses were included in the study if they had a full-time or part-time appointment, were in active service, and had a valid Personal Identification Number from the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Ghana. The Mann-Whitney U-test was used to compare mean rank scores between two groups, and the Kruskal Wallis H-test was used for the comparison.

Thirty percent of them rated their ability to formulate research questions, conduct literature search and retrieval, and critical analysis of scientific literature as fair or poor. Half of the nurses disagreed with changing to new methods, and more than half at least agreed with all the items measuring the use of evidence-based practice. One out of every 20 Nurses somewhat disagreed with formulating answerable research questions at work, and the same proportion disagreed or were neutral to integrating evidence into practice with their expertise. It was statistically significant that females (p-value = 0.001), married (p-value = 0.054), Christians (p-value<0.001), nurse educators (p-value<0.001) and part-time workers (p-value<0.001) were more likely to have higher mean scores on research knowledge and skills. The Kruskal Wallis test showed that research knowledge and skills (H = 97.281, p-value<0.001, df = 2), attitude towards evidence-based practice (H = 10.143, p-value = 0.006, df = 2), and nursing competencies (H = 9.041, p-value = 0.011, df = 2) differ for all the educational level of all nurses.

The self-reported competencies in the various aspects of the research process and knowledge generation by both clinicians and nurse educators were good; however, the overall composite score revealed that nurses only had fair knowledge and skills in this regard. Nurses should be given the requisite training to appraise and evaluate nursing research for incorporation into nursing practice.