Integrating evidence-based practice skills into public health nursing practice

The standard in nursing practice is to integrate evidence into the clinical setting, i.e. incorporate quality research into practice. However, public health nurses in local agencies and school nurses are often not prepared to do this. Frequently they revert to traditional paper sources of information that may be outdated or at least not at current as what is available online and/or they use Google and Wikipedia as the first sources for information. While these generic search tools can be a useful starting point, nurses need to use more reliable health information databases to support their clinical practice. This project, funded by the National Library of Medicine provides practicing public health and school nurses hands-on training in searching for credible information. In collaboration with Health Sciences librarians, workshops are offered to identify useful consumer and professional databases and demonstrate effective methods for searching. This session offers a brief overview of the issues related to implementing evidence-based practice into the practice setting for public health and school nurses; identifies key health databases and resources important to public health nursing; and offers an opportunity to brainstorm about ways these skills can be more widely disseminated to a broader audience of public health and school nurses in other states.