Burns, Gray, and Grove (2015, p. 3) provide a comprehensive definition of “research” in its connotation of repeated search or careful examination. At the baseline, research is a systematic inquiry wherein a hypothesis is formed and proved or disproved in a setting specific for the given area of study. Research is essential for any scientific discipline because its primary goal (and the supposed end product) is updated knowledge that is the driving force behind any science. Applied to nursing, research is a systematic investigation of materials and sources that creates a base of evidence for high-quality, safe, and cost-effective practices.
In medicine and specifically nursing, practice is the key word. Practices backed up by research (i.e., evidence-based practices or EBP) are the tools to improve patients’ and nurses’ well-being and the health care system as a whole. Given that the latter is based on the former, the main difference can be formulated: research answers – or attempts to answer – the “how” question, while the EBP uses this evidence to try and answer the “why.”
Procedural differences of research and EBP sprout from that: in contrast to research, EBP does not try to come up with new knowledge or validate the one that already exists. Rather, it uses the data provided by research to make decisions related to patient care. Finding an answer to the “why” question, therefore, involves collecting the best evidence, critically appraising it, integrating it with the patient-specific setting, and evaluation. To enable the “why,” the “how” is answered by developing a compelling question and putting it to test. The methods and designs of nursing research are plentiful, but the expected end product is the same: to contribute to the body of existing knowledge and provide evidence.
The interdependence of nursing research and evidence-based practice can be illustrated with some examples. A study by Sherman et al. (2012) explores the well-being and social adjustment of female breast cancer patients and tries to establish which follow-up care methods influence their adaptive behaviors in the most positive manner.
In other words, the question of this study is “how” to help these women adapt most optimally and cost-effectively. The findings reveal that the usual care was the most optimal way to support the patients’ adjustability to breast cancer. The lack of clinically significant results for any of the assigned interventions (psychoeducation, phone-counseling, and psychoeducation plus counseling) does not make the study unsuccessful. Quite on the contrary: the research helps establish the non-efficiency of psychoeducation and phone-counseling and justifies further investigation of the ways to improve the usual care (Sherman et al., 2012).
To further explore the subject of breast cancer, there was a recent update to a guideline on follow-up nursing care for breast cancer patients, which became one of the most cited guidelines since then. The guide by Khatcheressian et al. (2013) is based on 20 meta-analytic studies reviewing and evaluating evidence provided by the existing research on the follow-up and management of breast cancer. Thus, the findings from high-quality studies are likely to be systematically analyzed, evaluated, and included into guidelines for nursing practices, which is how the research-to-EBP pattern works.
In conclusion, there are differences to the ways nursing research and EBP operate. Still, the two are interdependent as they constitute the mechanism to drive nursing (and health care in general) to progress.
References
Burns, N., Gray, J. R., & Grove, S. K. (2015). Understanding Nursing Research (6th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Saunders.
Khatcheressian, J. L., Hurley, P., Bantug, E., Esserman, L. J., Grunfeld, E., Halberg, F.,…Davidson, N. E. (2013). Breast Cancer Follow-Up and Management After Primary Treatment: American Society of Clinical Oncology Clinical Practice Guideline Update. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 31(7), 961-965.
Sherman, D.W., Haber, J., Hoskins, C.N., Budin, W.C., Maislin, G., Shukla, S.,…Roth, A. (2012). The effects of psychoeducation and telephone counseling on the adjustment of women with early-stage breast cancer. Applied Nursing Research, 25(1), 3-16.