Access to Practical Nursing (APN) & Practical Nursing LibGuide 2025

Today, nursing research is performed using evidence-based medicine. This includes research monographs, peer-reviewed journal articles, scientific research reports, case studies, and clinical practice reports. 

Nursing scholarly literature is constantly increasing in volume and format. 

Healthcare researchers and clinicians depend on these information sources to:

• Diagnose

• Create Treatment strategies 

• Develop rehabilitation plans

• Develop plans for patient reintegration into the community or continued care in a safe healthcare setting or facility

In an article published in 2019 in the Journal of Nursing Scholarship titled 'Nursing research literature production in terms of the scope of country and health determinants: A bibliometric study' identified an increase of over 40% in nursing articles published between 2009 and 2017. 

The challenge becomes bigger when you expand your search into the realm of Biomedical Literature.

In 2021, the article Keeping up with the medical literature: Why, how, and when? The authors reported on a search they conducted in health sciences database PubMed in 2020, searching for articles that contained 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 and thrive in this environment, you must develop effective and efficient information-seeking and evaluation skills. These skills are not just used during your formal education—they are an essential component used throughout your career.