Sources of information used by nurses to inform practice: An integrative review.

Background: We present an integrative review of the literature about sources of information nurses use to inform practice. The demand for access to more and better information has been fueled by the evidence-based healthcare movement. Although the expectations for evidence-based practice have never been higher, the demands on care environments have never been greater.

Information acquisition for women facing surgical treatment for breast cancer: influencing factors and selected outcomes.

Objective: To examine, summarize, and critically assess the literature focusing on information use by early-stage breast cancer patients.

Methods: Empirical articles reporting the information needs, sources used/preferred, and intervention-related outcomes experienced by patients in the context of making a treatment choice were chosen. Several healthcare databases were searched.

Sources of practice knowledge among nurses.

Several studies have been published listing sources of practice knowledge used by nurses. However, the authors located no studies that asked clinicians to describe comprehensively and categorize the kinds of knowledge needed to practice or in which the researchers attempted to understand how clinicians privilege various knowledge sources. In this article, the authors report findings from two large ethnographic case studies in which sources of practice knowledge was a subsidiary theme.

Individual determinants of research utilization: a systematic review.

Context: In order to design interventions that increase research use in nursing, it is necessary to have an understanding of what influences research use.

Objective: To report findings on a systematic review of studies that examine individual characteristics of nurses and how they influence the utilization of research.

Search Strategy: A survey of published articles in English that examine the influence of individual factors on the research utilization behaviour of nurses, without restriction of the study design, from selected computerized databases and hand searches.

The Internet and access to evidence: how are nurses positioned?

Background: Published literature that describes the use of the Internet by nurses is scant, but it does reveal that there has been a delay in the acceptance of the Internet as a workplace tool by the medical community and, in particular by nurses.

Aims: The purpose of this article is to report on a study of how often and from what location nurses accessed the Internet, as well as the types of information they were seeking. In addition, our goal was to compare nurses' Internet use with that of physicians and the public at large, and to highlight structural and institutional challenges to nurses' use.