To measure the impact of an undergraduate research education program on the attitude, skill and uptake of evidence-based practice among undergraduate student nurses.
The contribution of evidence-based practice to clinical decision-making, quality of care and patient outcomes is well-documented. One approach to improving evidence-based practice uptake in clinical practice is through the provision of undergraduate research education; notwithstanding, the impact of research training on nursing practice is poorly established.
Descriptive longitudinal survey.
Three hundred and fifty four third-year nursing students enrolled in a Bachelor of Nursing program of a large Australian University were invited. Pre- (Phase 1) and post-completion (Phase 2) of a 16-week research education program, participants were asked to complete the Evidence-Based Practice Attitude and Utilization Survey; an 82-item online questionnaire measuring attitudes, skills and use of evidence-based practice, and barriers and facilitators of evidence-based practice uptake.
The survey was completed by 84 (24%) participants in Phase 1 and 33 (39% of Phase 1) participants in Phase 2. Program exposure resulted in a significant improvement in median skill and use subscores, but not median attitude subscore. Participants perceived inadequate skills in the interpretation, appraisal and application of research findings to clinical practice as being less of a barrier to evidence-based practice uptake posteducation, and access to online critical appraisal tools as being significantly more useful in facilitating evidence-based practice uptake posteducation.
The findings suggest that undergraduate research education may have a significant effect on nursing students' research skills and use of evidence-based practice, and minimise barriers to evidence-based practice uptake posteducation.
Undergraduate research education may play an important role in improving student nurse uptake of evidence-based practice; whether these changes can be sustained when transitioning from student nurse to registered nurse is a question for further research.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 10. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 08 April 2025.
All research outputs
#4,440,522
of 29,631,763 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Clinical Nursing
#1,056
of 6,032 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#63,842
of 409,960 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Clinical Nursing
#16
of 65 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 29,631,763 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 84th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 6,032 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 7.3. This one has done well, scoring higher than 82% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 409,960 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 84% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 65 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 75% of its contemporaries.
