Four primary perspectives on what stops nurses using research based information in practice emerged:
• problems in interpreting and working with research products which are seen as too complex, ‘academic’
and overly statistical. Nurses defining this perspective want to use research but feel limited in their ability to
do so by their lack of research appreciation skills and confidence.
• despite being confident with research-based information, and the perceived ability to be able to engage with
such material if they so wished, nurses defining this perspective perceive a lack of organisational support
(in the form of restricted local access to information and unsupportive colleagues) as a significant block. The
more experience nurses had in a clinical domain the less likely they were to be aligned with this perspective.
• many nurses adopted the stance that research products and researchers lack clinical credibility and that
they fail to offer the desired level of clinical direction. It would appear that nurses educated to graduate
level are more likely to want to see clinically credible and more prescriptive research products in the
workplace.
• some nurses lacked the skills and (to a lesser degree) the motivation to use research themselves.