Evidence Based Practice

1502 Words7 Pages
Nursing care can be defined as the professional health care rendered to an individual, his family and community in order to recover, maintain, or achieve, optimal health and quality of life. In the past, nursing care was solely based on opinions and personal philosophies but recently the approach to nursing care has changed and keeps changing over time as new research and scientific evidence unfolds. This article will discuss why nursing care of patients is less dependent on opinion and ritual but reliant on evidence from research or evidence-based approach. First of all, let us delve more into what evidence-based practise is and its importance in nursing practice. Evidence-based practice in regards to nursing care can be defined as an approach…show more content…
A systematic review study conducted using available evidence from published and grey literature to identify and analyse how much nurses use findings derived from research in their daily practice confirmed that it is moderately-high and has been consistent since the year 2000 (Squires, Hutchinson et al. 2011). Through the use of research, certain drugs have been stopped or modified because it was identified as not effective anymore or the adverse effect outwits its desired effect. A major example is the drug Chloroquine which happened to be widely used since the early 50s to 70s and was known to be very effective and safe malaria prophylaxis. Through research and convincing evidence, it has now been identified as less efficient and a contributing factor to the cause of increase malaria deaths in some parts of Africa because of the increase in resistance by the plasmodium parasites (Trape,…show more content…
Hydrogen peroxide was used for wound dressing and identified as an effective antimicrobial cleaning agent. The bubbling of hydrogen peroxide in the wound was perceived as evidence of presence of bacteria in the wound. However, research has proven that its use may lead to local tissue damage and hinder the growth of new dermis cells. Also, the bubbling is argued to be as a result of its exposure to air and not necessarily an indicator of infection (American Academy of dermatology 69th Annual meeting, 2011). This implies that, evidence-based practice is a better approach to providing effective care to our patients than just practising base on unsearched

More about Evidence Based Practice

Open Document