What Is Evidence Based Practice?

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In nursing, we are continuously looking to evidence-based practice to make decisions and help guide our nursing abilities. Evidence-based practice is daily patient-centered nursing care, that utilizes the latest and best scientific research. It considers the patients experience, the nurses clinical experience and current evidence. The use of EBP encourages continuous adaptation to new clinical practices within nursing, to improve patient outcomes. An evidence-based practice study starts with a PICO question. A PICO question, is a tool to help structure and organize this research. This term was first coined in 1995 by Richardson et al. It simplifies and breaks down the components of the information being investigated. (Riva et al., 2012) A PICO …show more content…
It is the subject of the research. The (I) stands for Intervention, which is the action the nurse takes to treat the patient. The (C) generally means comparison. In the research, what will the subject/ intervention be compared to? The (O) stands for outcome. It is a measurement of understanding the effectiveness of the interventions. These components should be as specific as possible. In some study questions, time is included in the PICO question, making it a PICOT question. Riva et al., 2012, cited several different types of PICO question categories, such as intervention, diagnosis, prognosis, etiology, or meaning. (Riva et al., 2012) Once all the key parts are defined within a question, those components are used to map out the research. It's important to really understand the purpose of a PICO question before starting, to best be able to use it as a tool in your research. When defining my own PICO questions, I started by considering my clinical experience. I sat down and made a list of different experiences that had triggered questions or concerns while in the clinical setting. I tried to be as specific as possible when narrowing down my population or subject. Here are the 3 PICO Questions I …show more content…
2. What is the difference between a'smart' and a'smart'? In patients prescribed oral medications (P) following a precise medication schedule (I) compared to taking medication without timing it to meals/ food (C) yields more favorable outcomes such as reduced adverse effects and discomfort (O).

3. What is the difference between a'smart' and a'smart'? In patients with a history of acute cardiac events (P) a focus on secondary preventative education such as lifestyle changes (I) compared to no preventive education (C) yields a decrease in cardiovascular events in the future (O).

When deciding to pick between these options, I choose the 3rd question because it is the most current and relevant pico question to current problems in the hospital. I also considered this question because it’s related to my most recent clinical experience in telemetry. While on Telemetry, I worked with multiple patients that recently had a reoccurring cardiac event. I noticed that each patient's understanding of their medical situation varied greatly. For example, we educated a patient about the importance of lowering his blood pressure. While educating him, we learned