Empowering nurses by building evidence-based practice capabilities: A case from the United Arab Emirates

Evidence-based practice (EBP) plays a significant role in improving the quality of healthcare services, meeting customer expectations, and contributing to organizational and business success. Literature also revealed that a large percentage of nurses lack evidence-based knowledge and skills, which limits their ability to make decisions, related to their work based on sound evidence rather than opinions and further limits their level of empowerment. The study adopted a mixed-method design; the authors surveyed a convenience sample of registered nurses working at a healthcare company in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to determine their current EBP attitudes, knowledge, skills, and behaviours, followed by interviewing a purposive sample of nurses to develop an EBP capabilities framework. The quantitative results disclosed that most nurses had positive attitudes toward EBP and identified critical gaps in nurse’s EBP knowledge, skills, and behaviours. The authors proceeded with the qualitative focused group discussion and proposed an EBP capabilities framework that could fit nurse’s context and resources.