Background: Internationally, nurses face ongoing difficulties in making a reality of evidence-based
practice. Existing studies suggest that nurse managers (NMs) should play a key role in leading and facilitating
evidence-based practice, but the nature of this role has not yet been fully explored or articulated.
This is one of the first studies to investigate the roles of NMs in evidence-based practice implementation.
Methodology and Methods: Using a case study approach the study explores five propositions in
relation to the NMs’ potential evidence-based practice role and the extent to which their attitudes,
knowledge, and skills support such a role. In doing so, it draws on interviews (n = 51), documentary
analysis and observational data.
Findings: Data analysis reveals that the role of NMs in facilitating evidence-based practice is underarticulated,
largely passive and currently limited by competing demands. Progress in implementing
evidence-based practice in the case study sites is largely explained by factors other than the role played
by NMs. As such, the findings expose significant discrepancies between NMs’ actual roles and those
espoused in the literature as being necessary. Contextual factors are important and it is clear that the
role of the contemporary NM places considerable emphasis on management and administration to the
detriment of clinical practice concerns.
Conclusions: The study reveals that NMs are only involved in evidence-based practice implementation
in a passive role, not the full engagement described in the literature as being necessary. This study adds
previously lacking detail of the roles of NMs. It elucidates why exhortations to NMs to become more
involved in evidence-based practice implementation are ineffectivewithout action to address the problems
identified.