Factors associated with nurses’ practice of EBP
A range of individual and organizational factors associated with nurses’ practice of EBP have been explored. Nurses with a higher educational level, such as a Master’s degree or qualifications at an advanced level, have reported a higher extent or more frequent practice of EBP compared with nurses with lower qualifications [10–12]. Among hospital nurses in Israel, skills in locating various research repositories and organizational support for searching and reading professional literature were associated with evidence-based nursing practice [10]. Melnyk and colleagues [13] examined the associations between health professionals’ implementation of EBP and beliefs about the value of EBP and their confidence in implementing EBP into practice (EBP beliefs), organizational culture, group cohesion and job satisfaction in a community hospital system in the US. EBP implementation was significantly associated with EBP beliefs and organizational culture. Supportive leadership has been identified as being strongly associated with nurses’ EBP practice in several studies [14, 15]. Junior clinical nurses have reported more barriers compared with senior clinical nurses in regard to accessing organizational information such as clinical guidelines and protocols, access to EBP resources, and having time for practicing EBP [16]. Thus, individual factors such as educational level, years of experience and beliefs and confidence in practicing EBP, as well as organizational factors such as supportive leadership, organizational climate and access to resources, have been demonstrated to be associated with practice of EBP.