Nursing Students' Guide to Evidence Based Research: Home

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As you work your way through the nursing program, you will have a number of assignments that require you to find, evaluate, and use research from the nursing literature. Your program uses evidence-based practice as a framework for learning about nursing, and many healthcare organizations make this a cornerstone of their practice, so this is an important part of your professional education.

Nursing research covers a wide range of topics, but clinical research is the core of the nursing literature. Several of your research assignments will require you to work with clinical research.

​Clinical research encompasses any research that relates to the treatment of patients. Clinical research studies are the most numerous and important type of research in the field. They provide the basis for evidence-based practice. 

To learn more about other areas of nursing research, check out the box below.

There are three important subpages hiding under the Home tab of this guide:

Introduction to Evidence-Based Practice

Asking Research Questions

Reading and Evaluating Research

Please check out these sections to learn more about finding and using clinical research for your assignments and your practice.

Nursing is a multifaceted profession that can be studied in many ways. Nurses conduct and publish research on all aspects of their profession, and as nursing students, you will need to become familiar with the literature in your field. Here are some of the major approaches to research in the field of nursing that compliment clinical research:

• Public health is an important concern for nurses; some of the public health research falls into the category of clinical research, but policy and other aspects of public health are also explored in the nursing research.
• Philosophy of nursing and the ethics of care-giving are important areas of interest.
• Workplace issues also form an important part of the nursing research. This literature includes studies about work conditions, attitudes, social interactions, gender, racial, and ethnic issues, among others.
• Sociology of nursing looks at care-giving as a social activity.
• Leadership, management and administration are important topics in nursing research.
• Legal and regulatory issues are examined.
• Nursing education is an important field of research.