Journal of Advanced Practices in Nursing

Assessment of Nurses Knowledge and Utilization of Evidence based Practice and its Associated Factors in Selected Hospitals of Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Tadesse B, Teshome HW and Eyoel AD

Background: Evidence based practice is conscientious, clear and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of the individual patient. Through the time, new and more effective medicines, medical devices and procedures are invented to help doctors, nurses and medical technicians provide the best possible care and treatments to patients.
Objective: To assess nurses knowledge and utilization of evidence-based practice and its associated factors in selected hospitals of Southern Ethiopia.
Methods: Facility-based cross-sectional study design was conducted among nurses working in selected hospitals of three zones of south region of Ethiopia from March 30 to May 1, 2017. 208 BSc nurses were involved in the study. The data was collected by three trained diploma nurses. The collected data was entered and analyzed using SPSS version 21 statistical software package. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression was done to identify factors that are associated with knowledge and utilization of evidence based practice among nurses. A statistical significance was declared at p value <0.05.
Results: Nearly half (45.3%) of nurses in this study had poor knowledge regarding evidence based practice. 38.5% of respondents were never utilized evidence based practice in their clinical practice. In this study being head nurse was 3.43 times (AOR= 3.427) (95%CI=(1.289, 9.112)) more likely to use evidence based practice when it is compared to being staff nurse. Knowledge of evidence based practice was significantly associated with nursing experience and working unit among nurses.
Conclusion and Recommendation: The result of this findings revealed that nurses working in selected hospitals in Southern nation nationalities and peoples of Ethiopia have low level of knowledge on evidence-based nursing practice. The manager of these hospitals need to provide on job training on evidence based practice which can raises level of knowledge and utilization of an evidence based practice among nurses.