Sources of information used by nurses to inform clinical practice

Background: Studies have identified that nurses are relying on coworkers as a source of information to inform clinical practice. Knowledge about what sources of information nurses used in clinical practice is important to increase use of evidence-based practice (EBP) and improve healthcare services. An integrative review from 2008 was updated in the present study to identify any changes of sources of information used in clinical practice. Purpose and Aim: The purpose of the study was to describe the information sources used by registered nurses to inform their clinical practice. Methods: An integrative review was conducted. Empirical studies in English or Scandinavian language with registered nurses as the main participants (>50%) from January 2007 and June 2021 were included. Studies collecting qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method data were included. Three different checklists were used depending on the study design for appraisal. The sources of information used by registered nurses were reviewed and ranked. Results: A total of 54 articles with 52 studies were included. The included studies were conducted in all five continents with variation in the sample size from 17 to 6317. The quality of the studies was overall assessed as fair. Low response rate, weak designs and poor statistical analysis were the major concerns of the quantitative studies. In general, the qualitative studies were assessed with a higher score indicating a better quality. Colleagues were still the most frequently used source of information in the quantitative data but the second most used were computers. In the qualitative data, reference materials were the most used. Conclusions: An increase in use of digital sources and reference materials to inform clinical practice is promising. However, the results are important for further planning how sources of information can be integrated in implementation of clinical decision support, electronic healthcare records and other electronic sources for clinical practice.