The limitations of evidenced-based practice

Abstract

Evidence based practice seeks to replace practice as usual, with practice guided by rigorous outcome-oriented research, ideally randomized controlled trials. It also seeks to make practice a less subjective enterprise, and to raise it to a higher level of accountability. It is associated with efforts to identify best practices in nursing and other disciplines. The limitations of evidence-based practice for nursing are not routinely discussed or considered by many clinicians. In this article the author raises several critical questions about the use of evidence-based practice in nursing. The author also suggests that nurses need to develop and use their own nursing perspective to help guide their synthesis of knowledge from diverse sources, which needs to be creatively and respectfully applied in each patient encounter.