Journal of Nursing Management, 2013, 21, 705
Letter to the Editor: Evidence based practice, the Italian experience
I read with interest the issue of Journal of Nursing
Management dedicated to ‘Promoting excellence –
Evidence-based Practise at the Bedside and Beyond’
and I am writing in response to the article entitled
‘Evidence-based practise: collaboration between
education nursing management’ written by Linton and
Prasun (2013).
The article highlights some effects that correspond
with results obtained by a study carried out by Chiari
et al. (2010) in Italy which researched on methods
nurses use to upgrade their know-how. The common
factor in all the studies regarded the obstacles found
in implementing Evidence Based Practise (EBP) in
nursing care. One of the main factors impeding the
full development of EBP is the lack of time dedicated
to upgrading, lack of expertise in interpreting results
(Dalheim et al. 2012), and difficulty in comprehending
the information acquired for nurses who do not have
English as their mother-tongue (Romani & Forni
2010).
An interesting feature I would like to highlight is
the path which nursing professionals in Italy are
undertaking to implement EBP at micro, meso and
macro organisational levels.
At micro levels many hospitals hold informative
events for nurses and other healthcare practitioners, to
address the study and promotion of EBP, and one of
these is the Bologna University Hospital St. Orsola –
Malpighi Polyclinic. Among the various resources is
the website www.evidencebasednursing.it which has
been the reference point for the promotion of EBP
among Italian nurses for many years. The site offers
literature reviews, tools for the interpretation of scien-
tific articles, links to the main databases which are all
in Italian, to help operators understand the various
documents.
At meso levels we have interventions on the part of
the Provincial College of Nurses, especially the one in
Rome, which not only created a Centre of Excellence
for nursing studies, an organisation which cooperates
with Italian and foreign Universities, scientific societies
and hospitals, and has implemented a database (ILIS-
I
- Italian nursing database of scientific literature)
DOI: 10.1111/jonm.12098
ª 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
with about 30 nursing magazines written in Italian
(Stievano et al. 2011).
Lastly, at macro levels, the Federation of the IPASVI
Colleges (Italian National Federation Nurses), in order
to promote the reading of nurse magazines and
encourage the dissemination of information, has
offered a subscription to the database CINAHL
Plus
With Full Text to all Italian nurses, ensuring the possi-
bility of access to the main database for healthcare
professions.
All these strategies help to make nurses are aware of
the importance of pursuing the best evidences in their
work, in an effort to help in offering the best care
possible, the safest and most preferred treatments, but
this panel of interventions would be of no use if each
hospital’s management does not allow the application
of the best treatments.
Gian Domenico Giusti R N , B S N , M S N 1,2 and
Federica Piergentili R N 3
1
Intensive Care Units, Azienda Ospedaliera di
Perugia-Perugia Hospital, Perugia, 2Lecturer at School of
Nursing, Perugia University of Medicine and 3Nursing
Direction, ASL Umbria 1, Perugia, Italy
E-mail: giustigiando@libero.it
References
Chiari P., Gianesini G., Loglisci B., Pizzuto M. & Mosci D.
(2010) How Nurses Update Their Knowledge: A Survey in
Three North Italian Hospitals. Assistenza Infermieristica e
Ricerca 29 (3), 124–131. (In Italian)
Dalheim A., Harthug S., Nilsen R.M. & Nortvedt M.W. (2012)
Factors Influencing the Development of Evidence-Based Prac-
tice Among Nurses: A Self-Report Survey. BMC Health Ser-
vices Research 24 (12), 367.
Linton M.J. & Prasun M.A. (2013) Evidence-Based Practice:
Collaboration Between Education Nursing Management.
Journal of Nursing Management 21, 5–16.
Romani S. & Forni C. (2010) Know-how, Attitudes and Obsta-
cles to the Implementation of Evidence-Based Practice: A
Descriptive Study Conducted Within Azienda USL di Reggio
Emilia. L’Infermiere 47 (4), 23–28. (In Italian)
Stievano A., Bonfigli A., Fanfera E. et al. (2011) ILISI
Digital
Index of the Italian Scientific literature of Nursing. Nurse
Education Today 31 (3), 294–298.
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