Critical Reflection On Evidence Based Practice

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Pages: 3

The essential skills of assessing a patient and the astute formulation of the health problem come through background training and experience. Nurses learn through critical reflection by gaining experience and exploring personal and theoretical knowledge to understand it and review it in different ways. This essay will first discuss the benefits of patients and the nursing profession when nurses regularly and effectively reflect on their practice. Secondly this essay identifies and discusses the sources that nurses might use to obtain evidence on which to base practice. Lastly this essay discusses the role of critical reflection in assisting nurses to base their care on evidence base practice.

Nurses who are able to reflect-in-action, will
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Evidence can be sourced from experts and from literature, which includes the original research and compilations of gathered research evidence that was used in analysing and informing choices in clinical decision making. This was often categorised as Hierarchy of evidence. This includes the primary and secondary sources of evidence and expert opinion. Firstly, the primary sources of evidence are those that are drawn on the original research gatherings. These sources include reports and articles based on research that has been collected from research subjects or participants. Nurses are required to develop a wide range of skills such as questioning attitudes, focusing on and refining their area of interest, networking to find support using evidence-based practice process. Also by being able to use the electronic sources such as, search engines and data bases efficiently and effectively. Secondly, the secondary sources of evidence are drawn on a range of sources informing the topic of concern such as systemic reviews, meta analyses and clinical guidelines. These secondary sources are used to locating documents such as clinical guidelines, national service frameworks or systemic reviews. The sources of evidence for clinical guidelines can be found on the websites of national organisations. Clinical guidelines and national frameworks are developed by teams who are specialists in their fields. Systemic reviews are compilations of a range of primary research that meets a range of specific criteria. The last source of evidence is expert opinion. These is where specialist nurses are appointed for their specialist knowledge and leaderships skills. Specialist and consultant nurses also publish articles in journals that are often based on research