Mediating the meaning of evidence through epistemological diversity.

Nursing's disciplinary recognition of 'multiple ways of knowing' reflects an epistemological diversity that supports nursing praxis. Nursing as praxis offers a conceptual way to explore what it is about the interface of practice, knowledge and evidence in nursing that distinguishes us as a discipline. I suggest that the relationship between evidence and knowledge is defined and mediated by the same epistemological diversity that supports nursing as praxis. Just as the meaning and truth-value of evidence is evaluated from within the body of existing disciplinary knowledge, new evidence may prompt an evaluation of the meaning and truth-value of extant nursing knowledge. Nursing practice that relies on scientific evidence as a singular basis of practice knowledge is susceptible to exploitation by the diverse agendas operating within an ideology of evidence-based practice and the healthcare system. Mediating the meaning of evidence for nursing practice through acknowledgement of the diverse epistemologies that underpin nursing knowledge will contribute to a disciplinary-specific definition of what constitutes evidence for nursing, and will better direct how evidence is integrated into a disciplinary body of knowledge.