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Nursing Students

Research Guide for Nursing Students including Entry to Nursing, MSN, DNP, DNP/PhD

Introduction to EBP

The JHNEBP Model is a powerful problem-solving approach to clinical decision-making, and is accompanied by user-friendly tools to guide individual or group use. It is designed specifically to meet the needs of the practicing nurse and uses a three-step process called PET: practice question, evidence, and translation. The goal of the model is to ensure that the latest research findings and best practices are quickly and appropriately incorporated into patient care.

 

Resources

Practice Question using PICO

If your question doesn't fit into the PICO framework, review our Formulating Your Research Question page on our Expert Searching Guide.

When setting out to do an EBP project, you'll need to have a well-developed research question. The JHNEBP Model's Appendix A - PET Process Guide, supplies you with a checklist to ensure that you have thought through all the steps and have a winning team in place prior to the start. PET stands for Practice Question, Evidence, Translation.

When framing the EBP question, consider ideas such as:

  • What is the problem, and why is it important to fix it?
  • What is the current practice?
  • What kinds of evidence or study types will help answer the question?

Is your question a background question or a foreground question? 

Background Questions - These are usually broad and used in the beginning. Background questions can be refined and adjusted as continue to develop the search. Background questions frequently assist in identifying best practices.

Foreground Questions - These types of questions are focused, with specific comparisons of ideas or interventions. Foreground questions can provide specific evidence related to the research question. Background questions can turn into foreground questions as the review progresses.

This process can be identified in the JHNEBP Model, Appendix B - Question Development Tool PICO. After you've completed Appendix A and Appendix B, complete Appendix C - Stakeholder Analysis and Communication Tool. This form is used to identify key stakeholders that can support decision-making, serve as subject matter experts, or implement change.


Reference: Dang, D., Dearholt, S.L., Bissett, K., Ascenzi, J., & Whalen, M. (2021). Johns Hopkins Nursing Evidence-Based Practice: Model and Guidelines. Sigma Theta Tau.

Finding Evidence in Databases

CINAHL® Plus with Full Text provides indexing for more than 5,000 journals from the fields of nursing and allied health. The database contains more than 4 million records dating back to 1937. Offering complete coverage of English-language nursing journals and publications from the National League for Nursing and the American Nurses' Association, CINAHL® Plus with Full Text covers nursing, biomedicine, health sciences librarianship, alternative/complementary medicine, consumer health and 17 allied health disciplines. In addition, this database offers access to health care books, nursing dissertations, selected conference proceedings, standards of practice, educational software, audiovisuals and book chapters.

Tip: Copy and paste the following into your search to limit to nursing specific literature:

AND ((MH "Nurses+") OR XB (nurse OR nurses OR nursing))

 

PubMed is a free resource supporting the search and retrieval of biomedical and life sciences literature with the aim of improving health–both globally and personally. It contains more than 38 million citations and abstracts of biomedical literature. 

Tip: Copy and paste the following into your search to limit to nursing specific literature:

AND ("Nurses"[Mesh] OR "Nursing"[Mesh] OR "nurse"[tiab] OR "nurses"[tiab] OR "nursing"[tiab])

 

JBI is an independent research and development non-profit leading evidence-based practice (EBP) organizations.It's primary focus is nursing research and evidence.

 

Use Embase for broader searches with a world wide focus. Embase is also a great resource for conference abstracts, drug information, and device indexing.

Tip: Copy and paste the following into your search to limit to nursing specific literature:

'nurse'/exp OR 'nursing'/exp OR 'nurse':ti,ab,kw OR 'nurses':ti,ab,kw OR 'nursing':ti,ab,kw

Nursing Journals

The following are a few different places to find nursing journals

Nursing journals at JHU that we individually subscribe to. If a journal is not on this list, it does not necessarily indicate we do not have access. If you have questions about accessing a journal, please contact your informationist.

The list is in alphabetical order, but you can resort by Journal Impact Factor, CiteScore, or SCImago. 

Nursing journals within the NLM catalog. You can further narrow the list to journals indexed in Medline, by language, etc.