Within the patient-centred care model, some factors facilitate evidence-based practice implementation in nursing practice while others hinder the process. The organization’s leadership, supported by adequately informed champions, is one of the key facilitators to enhanced compliance with evidence-based nursing practice in contemporary healthcare settings (McArthur et al., 2021). An organization’s leadership and champions play the key role of offering direction for nurses and other healthcare professionals to follow to ensure the successful translation of research into practice (Sasaki et al., 2020). As further reported by McArthur et al. (2021), other factors that facilitate adherence to evidence-based nursing practice include; availability of resources, well-designed strategies, the protocols in place, and time. In addition to these factors, Mathieson et al. (2019) indicate that a quality and safety culture, commitment among the nurses, and consistency in terminologies have a positive influence on evidence-based practice adherence among nurses. Ideally, an organization should work closely with nurses to encourage compliance with evidence-based nursing practice.
Individual, context, and organizational factors can prevent nurses from maintaining compliance to evidence-based nursing practice within the patient-centred care model. Findings of a study conducted by McArthur et al. (2021) revealed the major barriers to compliance with evidence-based practice as time constraints, lack of organizational support, lack of teamwork, limited finances to meet high evidence-based practice implementation costs, and inadequate staffing. As Mathieson et al. (2019) explain, resistance from nurses can hinder the successful translation of research evidence into nursing practice. The reason is that nurses who do not deem a given practice useful will not support it leading to non-compliance. Barth et al. (2016) conducted a survey with the aim of understanding why nurses and other healthcare professionals do not follow clinical practice guidelines. They discovered that barriers to clinical practice guidelines’ compliance include; the lack of familiarity with the contents, limited implementation skills among clinicians, the variation between the goals of patients and those of clinicians, and limited resources. Generally, an organization’s leadership should foster a culture that encourages nurses to comply with evidence-based practice.
Strategies to Help Decrease Non-Compliance with a Policy or Clinical Practice Guidelines
To demonstrate their commitment to evidence-based practice, healthcare organizations should put in place strategies to help decrease non-compliance with clinical practice guidelines or a healthcare policy. The reality of evidence translation as perceived by nurses is that it is always characterized by numerous challenges that must first be addressed for a successful transition to occur (Krudsen et al., 2021). One of the strategies to ensure compliance with evidence-based practice is to train nurses to implement a particular policy. During such training, the organization should communicate the rationale for a given practice change and its impacts on patient outcomes. Training basically increases the nurses’ skills, knowledge, and attitudes regarding a particular healthcare policy (Qumseya et al., 2021; Sasaki et al., 2020). Nurses will feel motivated to implement the policies outlined in clinical practice guidelines when they are empowered to perform the associated tasks thereby leading to compliance.
Another strategy that may help to increase compliance to clinical practice guidelines is leadership support. An organization’s leadership provide both human and non-human resources that are needed to support the delivery of quality healthcare services (Qumseya et al., 2021). McArthur et al. (2021) identified leadership support and availability of resources to be among the key facilitators of evidence-based nursing practice compliance. As Qumseya et al., (2021) explain, ensuring that nurses have access to clinical practice guidelines improves guidelines adherence and compliance. Therefore, the leadership should provide nurses with clearly documented clinical practice guidelines at the point of care to improve compliance. An organization that is able to address the barriers to evidence-based nursing practice compliance will be able to increase adherence to a healthcare policy or clinical practice guidelines.
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