Barriers to nurses' use of research: an Australian hospital study

Although research is recognised as an essential basis for nursing knowledge and practice development, there is considerable agreement that nurses do n ot use research as often as they could. The question is, what factors are p erceived by nurses in Australia to interfere with their ability to use rese arch in their clinical practice? Using factor analysis procedures. barriers to the use of research by 149 nurses working in an Australian hospital wer e grouped under three main factors, viz. the perceived usefulness of resear ch to clinical practice; the perceived ability of the practitioner to gener ate change to practice based on research and the accessibility of research to the practitioner. The three most frequently cited barriers to using rese arch were insufficient time on the job to implement research findings, insu fficient time to read research and a lack of awareness of research findings . In order to improve the ability of nurses to apply research to their prac tice, fundamental changes need to occur within the education system, so as to improve the teaching of research to students of nursing and qualified pr actitioners, within the health care system where nursing research is expect ed to be applied and among clinical nurses. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.