Barriers to Implementing EBP
Most of the barriers to implementing EBP correlate with individual aspects of nursing care. Shortage of nurses within healthcare organizations is one of the individual obstacles to implementing EBP. Shortage of nurses precipitated by lack of adequate human resource leads to heavy workload and longer shifts imposed on nurses. Instead of the focus of care provision on implementing EBP, psychological and emotional issues arise such as nurse burnout which becomes a priority. According to a study by Khammarnia et al. (2015), individual factors account for more than 55% of barriers to implementing EBP. Organizational barriers such as lack of internet access at workplaces and unavailability of a rich library with nursing journals for EBP contribute to poor implementation of EBP in nursing care.
Organizational support is a crucial facilitator of EBP implementation. Imperatively, clinical nurse performance and appraisal systems affect EBP implementation. The poor appraisal system implies that nurses are less motivated to incorporate patient values and preferences with the best evidence. As a result, the care delivery system becomes inadequate to fulfil patient needs.
A study by Mahmoud & Abdelrasol (2019) cited age, educational level and job experience as some of the obstacles to the successful implementation of EBP in healthcare. Additionally, employment status has also been determined to be a significant barrier to EBP implementation. Based on the study, nurse practitioners who had a job experience of either less than five years or more than 16 years identified organizational aspects as the key obstacles to EBP implementation. Imperatively, there was a U-shaped association between job experience and barriers to EBP implementation. Higher educational qualification was associated with better skills to implement EBP. Therefore, nurses with baccalaureate qualification are likely to utilize their EBP implementation skills compared to those with lower educational experience. Since academic degree correlates with available skills to implement EBP, nurses with higher qualification are motivated and have a positive attitude towards supporting EBP project.
References
Khammarnia, M., Haj Mohammadi, M., Amani, Z., Rezaeian, S., & Setoodehzadeh, F. (2015). Barriers to implementation of evidence-based practice in Zahedan teaching hospitals, Iran, 2014. Nursing research and practice, 2015.
Mahmoud, M. H., & Abdelrasol, Z. F. M. (2019). Obstacles in employing evidence-based practice by nurses in their clinical settings: a descriptive study. Frontiers of Nursing, 6(2), 123-133.