Evidence Based Nursing / Spiritual Healing - Essay Example

Research in nursing is highly recommended in the recent years as a means to improve healthcare activities, identify new knowledge in the area, and improve professional education and practice. As a novice nurse, I have realized that nursing research can greatly help one in identifying the exact knowledge relating to various aspects of nursing and it contributes to the overall care provided in the healthcare sector. Health care research in chronic illness, quality and cost-effective care, health promotion and disease prevention, management of symptoms, adaptation to new technology, health disparities, palliative care at the end of life, etc can help a novice nurse in comprehending about essential components of care giving.

As Potter and Perry maintain, “nursing research is a way to identify new knowledge, improve professional education and practice, and use resources effectively.” (Potter and Perry, 60) In the professional nursing practice, the systematic and scientific process of research plays a crucial role and it contributes immensely to nursing process and evidence-based nursing. Essentially, nursing profession as well as care giving practice has transformed the traditional methods of nursing with evidence-based approaches, and the main credit goes to informatics and the hard work by experts and researchers in nursing.

This paper makes a reflective analysis of the role of nursing research in effective evidence-based nursing and spiritual healing. Significantly, critical thinking as well as scientific research is a key factor of nursing process which is an organizing framework for professional nursing practice. It is fundamental to recognize that Evidence-Based Nursing (EBN) emphasizes nursing practice based on evidence or research. Betty J. Ackley and Gail B. Ladwig suggest that it is “a systematic process that uses current evidence in making decisions about the care of clients, including evaluation of quality and applicability of existing research, client preferences, costs, clinical expertise and clinical settings.

” (Ackley and Ladwig, 2) Evidence-Based Nursing can be realized as a problem-solving approach which is focused on enhancing the quality of nursing care and the profession of nursing. By highlighting asking searchable, answerable clinical questions, Evidence-Based Nursing seeks to improve nursing profession and care giving. In a reflective analysis of the role of nursing research in the current professional nursing practice, it becomes lucid that there is a crucial relationship between research and evidence-based nursing.

An understanding of the basic definition of the concepts of research and evidence-based nursing makes this relationship cogent. Research can be defined as an orderly, systematic, and objective approach in order to create new knowledge and refine existing knowledge under rigorous testing conditions. In comparison, evidence-based practice refers to “decisions and care practices based on research and expertise. EBP bridges the gap between scientific evidence and its practical use in the clinical setting… It aims to give the most consistent and best possible care by creating clinical guidelines that are based on current evidence.

” (Alfaro, 123-4) It is also important to recognize that EBP puts together the best research evidence, knowledge from clinical experts, and patient preferences in clinical practice. Therefore, as these definitions suggest, there is vital connection between research and evidence-based nursing, and the systematic study of how evidence from research can be applied in practice transforms knowledge in EBP. In other words, transforming knowledge from research to practice is fundamental in evidence-based