Date of Award

2012

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Nursing (MSN)

Committee Chair

Mary Alice Hodge

Abstract

The purpose of the study, Evidence Based Practice Use: A Study of School Nurses in Central and Eastern North Carolina, is to gain insight of the barriers and facilitators of evidence based research in the school setting. The unique and autonomous nature of school nursing makes evidence base practice and research utilization especially important to achieve optimal outcomes in this setting that is often isolated from other health care providers. A descriptive cross sectional survey design using the BARRIER scale was used in this quantitative study (Funk et al., 1991). Using the BARRIER scale by Sandra Funk, school nurses from Central and Eastern North Carolina public school systems (N=50) were asked to rate their barriers to research utilization. Roger's Diffusion of Innovation Theory (1995) was used as the theoretical framework to guide this study. The findings revealed that the perceived greatest barrier was insufficient time on the job to read research. According to the reported perceived level of awareness, perception of the importance, and current reported skill level, the data suggests the school nurses in the sample had reached Roger's Diffusion of Innovation theory's (1995) levels of awareness, persuasion, and decision, however characteristics of the organization (setting) is a reported barrier to implementation of research utilization.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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