Accessing and Assessing the Evidence: An Online Tool for Teaching Evidence-Based

Nursing Practice

Mary Lou KlemHealth Sciences Library System

University of Pittsburgh

Elizabeth LaRueSchool of Nursing

University of Pittsburgh

Peter DrausSchool of Adult and Continuing Education

Robert Morris University

Background

• 2005: School of Nursing introduced a new curriculum designed to promote EBP

• Internal taskforce charged with identifying or creating online tools to assist faculty in teaching of EBP skills

Accessing and Assessing the Evidence (AAE): User Goals

• Practice the creation of answerable clinical questions

• View literature searches designed to answer clinical questions

• Practice critical appraisal of selected citations

AAE Content

• Module 1: Clinical scenarios and questions– Developed by clinical nursing faculty and allied health

professionals– Expert-developed clinical questions

• Module 2: Literature search and opportunity for critical appraisal– Search conducted by medical librarian– Annotated search history plus selected citations– Rank citation relevancy

Data Collection and Storage

• Username and password are assigned

• Data stored in MySQL database– Chosen scenario and question type – PICO elements– Final clinical question– Citation rankings

Results

• 33 students enrolled in undergraduate nursing research course– Generated a total of 102 clinical questions– Provided a total of 380 citation rankings

53

1

0

29

116

TherapyDiagnosisPrognosisEtiologyHarmOther

Question Types Chosen By Students(%)

7568

93

0

20

40

60

80

100

PICO Question QuesType

% correct

Success in Creating Clinical Questions

Student versus Expert Rankings of Citation Relevancy (%)

05

1015202530

Students Experts

Summary

• AAE provides students with:– Practice at forming answerable clinical questions– Overview of expert lit search to answer a clinical

question– A first step in appraising evidence

• Students– Successful at creating questions– Biased toward creating certain types of questions– Overall agreement with experts on relevance of

selected citations

Future Directions

• Effects of prior instruction versus no instruction

• Content development and revision