Assessing Clinical Evidence

Nurses must remain knowledgeable in their fields. To do this they must read research journals, attend research conferences and use a variety of information resources to stay current. This graduate level core research course is designed to help advanced practice nurses learn specific approaches to identifying and evaluating the quality and applicability of relevant research.  The evidence-based practice (EBP) process is used to explicate methods to transform critical appraisal skills into clinical actions. During the course, students will learn how to conceptualize clinical practice problems, how to transform these problems into answerable research questions, how to search for the best clinical evidence, how to assess these research questions using basic epidemiological, biostatistical and scientific principals and how to integrate the research results with patient's values and preferences.