EBP Critical Thinking Exercises

These evidence-based practice critical thinking questions from Evidence-Based Practice for Nurses: Appraisal and Application of Research by Nola Schmidt and Janet Brown will help you see EBP in new ways!

Please read each question below and type your response into each corresponding box. When you are finished, fill out your name, e-mail address, and instructor's e-mail at the bottom of this form, and click submit to send a copy to your instructor.

1: Ten years from now nursing students will study how historical occurrences have shaped the evolution of nursing as a science. Discuss four current events that will be considered to have influenced the development of nursing science.

2: In your nursing program, how are the concepts of the metaparadigm defined? Is there a model or theory that is used?

3: Have you ever participated in a research study? Do you think your behaviors were different because you were being studied?

4: Recall a question you encountered during your last clinical experience. How might you have answered that question using an EBP approach?

5: Do you think that the findings from unethical studies should be published? Why or why not?

6: Consider the facilities that you have been to for clinical experiences. Which facilities appear to have embraced EBP? Why do you think that is the case? How are individual nurses involved?

7: A common problem in the newborn nursery is that infants undergoing circumcision show decreases in body temperatures following the procedure. A nurse researcher is interested in studying the effect of a warming tray on the body temperature of infants undergoing circumcisions. Write a research question, associative hypothesis, directional hypothesis, and null hypothesis that would be appropriate for this study

8: A nurse on a surgical floor observes that there are several new approaches being used to dress wounds. She observes that some methods appear to promote healing faster than others. After reviewing the research literature, she was unable to locate any research about the dressings she is using. How might she go about testing her theory that some methods are better than others? Can this be done deductively, inductively, or using mixed methods? Are there any theories presently available to her related to wound healing and if so, where might she locate these? What concepts might be important in forming the question?

9: Reflect on your most recent patient encounter. When you assessed your patient, what theoretical assumptions guided your data collection? Were there questions you had about nursing needs or health circumstances that puzzled you? How did you go about addressing these questions? How might you go about that in the future? Who might you involve in addressing questions? What did you do that worked when providing care for this patient? Would you use the approach with another patient? Why or why not?

Enter your name, e-mail address, and your instructor's e-mail address to have your results e-mailed to him or her.
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EBP Critical Thinking Exercises

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