Knowledge, Attitude, and Behaviors of Nursing Students on Evidence-Based Nursing*

INTRODUCTION: Training nurses with the knowledge and skills required by evidence-based nursing practices is one of the main objectives of undergraduate education. It is therefore necessary to determine the knowledge, skills, and behaviors of nursing students on evidence-based nursing and to create appropriate educational strategies. The aim of this study was to evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and behaviors of nursing students on evidence-based nursing.
METHODS: This descriptive study was conducted at a nursing faculty in Ankara between May and June 2018. The study sample consisted of 212 students continuing undergraduate education at the time of the study who volunteered to participate in the study. The data were collected by the researchers with the “Socio-Demographic Information Form” and “Knowledge, Attitude, and Behaviors of Nursing Students Towards Evidence-Based Nursing Scale.” Data were presented as mean, standard deviation, median, and minimum-maximum values for continuous variables and as number and percentage values for categorical variables. Conformity of the data to normal distribution was analyzed by “Kolmogorov–Smirnov” and “Shapiro–Wilk” tests. “Mann–Whitney U” test was used to compare variables
that did not show normal distribution. P <.05 was accepted as statistically significant in all analyses.
RESULTS: Of the students, 94.8% were female, and the mean age was 22.51 ± 0.52 years. Majority of the students had mobile phones (99%) and internet access at home or in the dormitory (93.9%). In addition, it was determined that the students used the internet (87.7%, 112 ± 0.32 minutes per day), books (79.7%), library (48.6%), and journals (19.8%) to obtain medical information. When the sub-dimension scores of “Knowledge, Attitude, and Behaviors of Nursing Students Towards Evidence-Based Nursing Scale” were examined, sub-dimensions with scores in descending order were knowledge (5.27 ± 0.69), future use (4.86 ± 0.63), attitude (2.66 ± 0.99), and practice (2.59 ± 0.84).
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Based on the results of this study, it was found that nursing students understood the knowledge they gained about evidence-based nursing and had the tendency to use this approach in their professional lives, but they were lacking in developing attitudes toward evidence-based nursing and accessing medical/nursing evidence. Therefore, it will be highly beneficial to plan trainings and provide clinical guidance for students to access evidence-based nursing practices and transfer these to their respective field of practice.