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Adams SL. Examining Nurse Manager Behaviors Related to Use of Evidence-Based Practices on Nursing Units. Poster session presented at: Knowledge Utilization Annual Colloquium; 2011 Jun 15; Belfast, Ireland.
Background: There is little empirical evidence to describe the role of the nurse manager in promoting evidence-based nursing practice. It is imperative to better understand the role of the nurse manager in fostering environments that value the use of evidence-based practice. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the leadership behaviors of nurse managers regarding promotion of evidence-based practices in the United States by: 1) identifying high performing and low performing patient care units through secondary data analysis 2) describing nurse manager behaviors in high performing and low performing nursing care units. Sample: The sample for this study was nurse managers from medical and/or surgical nursing units in the United States. The sampling pool was 185 medical and/or surgical nursing units that participating in another study. Units were first stratified by hospital size and then by unit performance (i.e. high or low), which was based on a number of variables including: the use of EBP on the unit as reported by staff RNs, the use of EBP as recorded in medical records, as well as patient outcomes. Methods: A mixed methods design was used. Quantitative, descriptive statistics were used to identify high and low performing nursing units. Qualitative design was used to interview and identify nurse manager behaviors in relation to EBP. Analysis: Descriptive content analysis to identify overarching patterns across participants. Based on the specific aims of the research study, researchers created a set of basic descriptive codes as the scaffolding in which researchers would fill with in-depth details and develop themes across participants. Two researchers independently coded interviews. Results: Interviews with nine nurse managers were conducted. The average length of interviews was 41 minutes. There were three major concepts across all interviews: the role of the nurse manager, infrastructure, and self-identified roles. The results related to the role of the nurse manager will be the focus for this presentation. There were multiple themes under the concept of the role of the nurse manger including: expectations, and promoting the use of EBP. Commonalities and differences across these three themes will be discussed.
