Evidence-Based Leadership: A Study of Its Application to General Hospital of the Public Health System Through the Implementation Leadership Scale.

Background: Evidence-based practice (EBP) is about integrating scientifically proven effective methods into clinical practice by healthcare professionals in the context of patient care. This approach is being studied extensively by the scientific community because of its positive effects on patients and on the health system. The aim of the study was to investigate the degree of implementation of evidence-based leadership in Greek public hospitals.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study. The sample of the study consisted of 213 nurses who worked to two large public hospitals of Athens, Greece. The Implementation Leadership Scale (ILS) used for data collection. The SPSS v. 24. was used to analyze the data.

Results: Most of participants were females (89.7%), aged 31-40 years (38.5%), married (74.8%), were RN (68.1%), and had more than 10 years of work experience (63.9%). About half of participants (40.4%) supported that the head nurse has taken in a great extent the necessary measures to facilitate evidence-based clinical care, thus positively affecting its implementation. About one third of participants (35.2%) considered that their head nurses are well informed. The more knowledge nurses have about evidence-based clinical care, the greater their prevention (r = 0.852, p < 0.05) and the more persistent they are in implementing it despite any difficulties (r = 0.796, p < 0.05).

Conclusions: Knowledgeable, supportive, proactive, and persistent leadership positively influences the implementation of evidence-based practice. The hospital managers, and especially head nurses, are able to promote the implementation of evidence-based care.