Access to Practical Nursing (APN) & Practical Nursing Research Guide

Today, we will lay the foundation for how you will locate health sciences information in your education and professional careers. 

Why is this skill important to you?

1. Effective information research skills will not only help you identify knowledge but also shape your approach to clinical practice, reinforcing the goals of nursing and enhancing patient care.

2. This session will help you transition from primarily consuming health sciences information to contributing to it.

3. The volume of scholarly information produced in the health sciences is 'mind blogging'. It's size is increasing exponentially.

In 2011, Densen, in his article "Challenges and Opportunities Facing Medical Education," predicted that by 2020, medical knowledge would double every 73 days.  While Densen was referring to all forms of medical knowledge, within this medical knowledge are found the scholarly books, research journals, and multi-media of the health sciences professions. 

This assertion was further supported by an article published in the Journal of Nursing Scholarship published an article in 2019 titled "Nursing Research Literature Production in Terms of the Scope of Country and Health Determinants: A Bibliometric Study' identified an increase in the number of nursing articles published between 2009 and 2017 of over 40%. 

In a 2021 article titled "Keeping up with the medical literature: Why, how, and when? " The authors reported on a search they conducted in PubMed in 2020 for articles containing the keyword 'Stroke'; they found over 30,000 articles. This result was 2.3× higher than in 2010 and 5× higher than in 2000. 

To survive in this information environment, you need to develop effective and efficient information-seeking and evaluation skills. These skills should help you seek out and use new ideas to benefit your practice, patients, and community. 

Luckily, nursing has one of the most well-developed approaches to conducting research and evaluating information.