Evidence-based practice in healthcare education at the bachelor level

Project summary

In our complex welfare system it is expected that healthcare professionals stay updated and use evidence from various sources to make clinical decisions and improve healthcare. An international curriculum framework for evidence-based practice gives recommendations for teaching and education, and Norwegian healthcare educational institutions describe evidence-based practice in their learning outcomes. However, there is little knowledge of how evidence-based practice is integrated in healthcare bachelor educational programs, and how final year bachelor students in healthcare perceive their competence in evidence-based practice. To the best of our knowledge, no tool assessing bachelor students’ competence in evidence-based practice has been validated for a Norwegian setting.

 

The purpose of this study is to assess competence in evidence-based practice among health care bachelor students and to investigate how teachers integrate evidence-based practice in teaching and in educational programs.

 

The project will have four sub-projects:

1. Translate and validate the Evidence-Based Practice Profile questionnaire

2. Assess and compare health care bachelor students’ perceived Evidence-Based Practice Profile between professions and educational institutions

3. Examine health care bachelor students’ perceived knowledge and skills in evidence-based practice to actual competence in evidence-based practice

4. Explore how healthcare teachers at bachelor level integrate evidence-based practice in teaching and in educational programs

 

The project will provide knowledge about competence in evidence-based practice among healthcare bachelor students. It will also provide knowledge of how evidence-based practice is integrated in healthcare educational programs. This is new knowledge that will contribute to the implementation and evaluation of evidence-based practice in healthcare education at the bachelor level.