Correlations Between Leadership, Self-Efficacy, and Evidence-Based Practice Competency in Nursing in a Chinese...

This study evaluates the interplay between nursing leadership, innovative self-efficacy, and evidence-based practice competencies, aiming to identify predictive factors for enhancing nursing performance in evidence-based care.

A convenience sampling strategy was employed to enlist 1104 clinical nurses from a tertiary A-level general hospital in Lishui city. Data collection involved the utilization of a general information survey, an implementation leadership scale, the Innovative Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (IS-EQ), and a simplified scale designed to assess evidence-based practice.

The mean total scores observed were 37.34±9.77 for nursing supervisor implementation leadership, 29.04±5.39 for nurses' innovation self-efficacy, and 28.80±4.98 for evidence-based practice competency. Through correlation analysis, it was found that in the actual nursing work scenarios, when head nurses effectively exert their leadership and nurses have a relatively high level of innovative self-efficacy, the nurses' evidence-based practice ability will subsequently improve, and the two show a highly significant positive correlation (p < 0.01). The multiple stepwise regression analysis further reveals in depth that the leadership implemented by head nurses, nurses' innovative self-efficacy, as well as nurses' educational level and the degree of participation in academic conferences are all key factors for accurately predicting nurses' evidence-based practice ability. These factors work together and account for 52.8% of the variance in evidence-based practice ability (P < 0.05).

Strengthening the leadership training for head nurses, improving nurses' professional quality, and providing more academic exchange opportunities could effectively improve nurses' evidence-based practice ability to practically optimize the quality and professional level of nursing services.