Research Guides: BSN Research Guide: Evidence-Based Practice (EBP)

Getting Started with Evidence-Based Practice (EBP)

Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) is a process of life-long, problem-based learning. EBP is a concept that applies to all of the health sciences. The EBP Process involves 5 Steps: 1) Converting information needs into focused questions; 2) Efficiently tracking down the best evidence with which to answer the question; 3) Critically appraising the evidence for validity and clinical usefulness; 4) Applying the results in clinical practice; 5) Evaluating the performance of the evidence in clinical application. Tied to the EBP Process is the Evidence Hierarchy.

Introduction to the EBP Process and the Hierarchy of Evidence

5 Steps in the Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) Process


Step 1	ASK a specific clinical question	Form a relevant and answerable question based on your patient's case ("Convert information needs into focused questions")
Step 2	ACQUIRE the evidence	Choose applicable resources and perform a search ("Efficiently tracking down the best evidence with which to answer the question")
Step 3	APPRAISE the evidence for its validity and relevance	Examine the articles to determine their validity and applicability to your research ("Critically appraising the evidence for validity and clinical usefulness")
Step 4	APPLY the results in patient care decisions	Use this evidence in conjunction with your clinical knowledge and the patient's values and expectations to make a patient care decision ("Applying the results in clinical practice")
Step 5	ASSESS the process to improve it	Evaluate your performance throughout this process and review the patient's outcome to determine if and where you could improve ("Evaluating the performance of the evidence in clinical application")

Categories of Clinical Questions
Different types of clinical questions have certain kinds of information resources that best answer them. This chart lists the categories of clinical questions and the type of study you should look for to answer them.

Evidence Hierarchy Pyramid
The Evidence Hierarchy Pyramid depicts the relationship between the Evidence Hierarchy and the 5-Step EBP Process.

How to Find EBP Practice Articles

Using Clinical Queries Search to find EBP resources in PubMed
From PubMed's homepage navigate to "Clinical Queries" located in the Find section of the website. Using the "Clinical Queries" search bar filters your PubMed search results to only articles that report research conducted with specific methodologies.
Evidence-Based Practice in CINAHL Complete
A guide to searching the CINAHL Complete database and filtering your search results.

Open Access EBP in Nursing Journals: Journals and websites in this section are primarily open access (OA). However, keep in mind that some journals do not make every article freely available. When conducting your search look for open access icons, or use the advanced search to filter your results to only include OA content.