Nursing Global Conference

The two fundamental components of evidence-based practice include nursing research and evidence synthesis and facilitate nurses' provision of high-quality care based on data-based findings. Conducting research and synthesizing evidence helps nurses find the best practices, seize healthcare problems, and improve the nursing profession as well. This session will provide guidelines on key aspects of nursing research and synthesis of evidence such as best practice guidelines for developing skills in conducting research, validating evidence quality, and implementing findings in the clinical environment.

Research in nursing begins by defining important questions and issues that have an impact on the patient care and the health care system itself. Nurses usually carry out research on various topics, such as patient outcomes, processes of care, or specific interventions' effectiveness. Nursing research often, in most instances, follows a systemic approach which includes definition of the problem, literature review, designing of a study, collection and analysis of data, and then final conclusions. A systematic process does this but, for example, ensures the credibility, reliability, and generalisability of the conclusions to actual clinical nursing settings.

Literature synthesis

Literature synthesis is a process whereby findings from different studies are integrated to produce a general understanding regarding the particular health-care concern. Common approaches to evidence synthesis in nursing include systematic reviews, meta-analysis, and integrative reviews. This is accomplished by aggregating research evidence and identifying trends and gaps in knowing. It is in this aspect that synthesized evidence guides nurses to design or formulate clinical guidelines, inform changes in nursing practice, and establish standards of care that will improve patient outcomes. Synthesized evidence seems most important in guiding nursing care because it puts into perspective the issues of health care at hand and provides informed decision-making support.

Evidence synthesis should essentially be applied to the effective utilization of research findings to nursing practice. Applying research-based guidelines will help nurses to make informed clinical decisions, which would, in turn make their patient care dependent on the best evidence available. In addition, incorporating research into practice also includes assessing its feasibility, appropriateness, and effectiveness of evidence-based interventions appropriately. Converting research into practice will consequently contribute towards the continuous development of patient care, and keeping up-to-date with the latest medicine knowledge developments remains within the nurse's sphere.

It would cover best practices in conducting nursing research and how this relates to the techniques of synthesis: application and implementation into clinical care. The topics included in the sessions are research design, data analysis, critical appraisal of literature, and methods for implementing evidence-based changes in nursing practice. By these guidelines, the skills of nurses in research can be enhanced, the nursing body increased, and ultimately more effective patient care through evidence-based approaches.

These evidence synthesis guidelines thus offer a framework for nursing roles in advancing quality and outcomes of healthcare through practice based on evidence.