Assessing the Knowledge and Skills of Nurses with Evidence-Based Practice

What is it about?

Few objective tools have been available to evaluate nurse’s competency with evidence-based practice (EBP). Such evaluation is essential to advance this critical skillset that has been shown to significantly impact patient health outcomes. The Modified Fresno Test-Acute Care Nursing, a 13-item short answer EBP test, was developed and tested to fill this gap. The test covers all three EBP components (research evidence, clinical expertise, and patient values/preferences), and four of the five EBP steps (inquire, acquire, appraise, apply). It has undergone psychometric testing with different cohorts of acute care nurses (EBP novices, masters and experts). Test validation confirmed strong content validity indices (individual and scale) and inter-rater reliability, and acceptable Cronbach alpha, item discrimination indices and item-total correlations.

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Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash

Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This newly validated EBP test offers nurse leaders, educators and scientists with an objective measure to assess nurses’ progression in developing competency in EBP in academic, clinical practice or research settings. The availability of such a measure is critical as most existing tools focus on assessing nurses’ self-perceived EBP knowledge/skills which research has shown to be biased in nurses, physicians and allied health professionals. Thus, the Modified Fresno Test-Acute Care Nursing can be used by nurse leaders in initiatives such as annual competency programs, shared governance councils, nurse residency programs or EBP fellowships. Nurse scientists can utilize the tool to evaluate different types of EBP educational programs. Thus, this objective test can help build science through comparative effectiveness research to determine which methods are superior in advancing competency. For example, online vs. blended EBP education could be compared, or EBP immersions vs. fellowships. Generating this new knowledge is imperative to increase our understanding of ways we can most effectively assist nurses in developing this critical competency that impacts health outcomes of patients, families and communities.