Clinical nurse educators as agents for change: increasing research utilization
Section snippets
Review
We conducted a review to assess the state of knowledge on research utilization and “intermediaries” working in clinical nursing roles. Intermediaries include clinical nurse educators, staff development educators, clinical nurse specialists, and practice developers. We found few studies that assessed research utilization and nurse educators. Most of the research conducted to date has studied academic nurse educators rather than educators working in clinical roles. Some studies report the
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between characteristics of clinical nurse educators and research utilization. The study objectives were:
- (1)
to describe the demographic and professional characteristics of clinical nurse educators and compare research utilization scores between educators, staff nurses, and managers,
- (2)
to model the determinants of research utilization among nurses by role and level of education, and
- (3)
to explore the differences between overall, instrumental,
Theoretical framework
We used Rogers’ (1995) diffusion of innovation theory as a framework for the study. It provided guidance for the literature review, the selection of study variables, and the analyses. Many authors have used this theory to study research utilization in nursing (Brett, 1987; Winter, 1990; Michel and Sneed, 1995; Rodgers, 2000). The fifth phase of the innovation development process frames our study. Each of the variables included in our predictive model of research utilization are latent concepts
Design
The findings reported here are a result of analyses conducted on the Alberta Nurse Survey (Estabrooks et al., 2003a). This survey is an extension of a national study on the utilization of health research results in Canada (Landry et al., 2001). The Alberta extension received ethical clearance from following bodies: University of Alberta Health Research Ethics Board, University of Calgary Conjoint Ethics Board, Community Health Research Ethics Review Board, and the Chinook Health Region. The
Results
There were 82 clinical nurse educators in the total sample. Of these, 60 were instructors of staff or patients; nine were clinical nurse specialists, and the remaining 13 were employed in research, advanced nursing, or consultant roles where teaching others consumed a major portion (>50%) of their time. We report the findings of this study by the objectives outlined in the purpose.
Objective #1: To describe the demographic and professional characteristics of clinical nurse educators and compare
Discussion
Awareness, attitude, and involvement consistently predicated overall, instrumental, and symbolic research utilization. Being a manager or staff nurse detracted from all predicted research utilization scores, indicating their lower levels of research use as compared to those of educators. Although the variables encompassing communication (localite, cosmopolite, and mass media) did not predict overall research utilization in the first model (Table 5), the correlations show corresponding
Conclusion
Clinical nurse educators and other intermediaries exhibit research utilization behaviors that are important for the facilitation of evidence-based practice. Clinical nurse educators and other intermediaries in nursing may be an untapped resource in organizations that want to foster a culture of evidence-based nursing practice. The Canadian Health Services Research Foundation's knowledge brokering initiative is one indication of the importance placed on intermediaries as links to enhance the
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