Nurses’ Research Behavior and Barriers to Research Utilization Into Clinical Nursing Practice: a Closer Look

Background: It is widely accepted that utilization of the best-known research evidence in nursing practice entails improvement of nursing care received by patients and strengthening of nursing profession.Aim: The aim of this paper was the review of nurses’ research behavior and the barriers that nurses meet in order to utilize research evidence into clinical nursing practice.Methodology: There has been conducted a literature search in Pubmed and Science Direct libraries, using specific search terms. An important inclusion criterion for the studies was the use of barriers to research utilization scale (BRUS), along or combined with another instrument.Results: A total of 37 original papers included in the present article. A table of the top five barriers to research utilization scale has been conducted. Data from the table indicate that the existence of barriers to incorporation of evidence into practice comes mainly from clinical settings characteristics. In addition, issues about nursing education, nurses’ research and reading habits, facilitators of research utilization and their relevance for nursing staff and clinical practice are also discussed.Conclusions: Since the barriers to research utilization are well identified in the nursing literature and there is a wealth of information on this subject, the next step is to find ways to overcome them and value the impact of the relevant interventions towards research utilization behavior.