Pediatric nurses' perceived knowledge and beliefs of evidence-based practice in the care of children and adolescents with moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury.

PURPOSE: Pediatric nurses play a significant role in all phases of traumatic brain injury (TBI) recovery, particularly during the hospital stay. Although evidence-based nursing practice is known to improve patient outcomes, limited research exists on nurses' evidence-based perceived knowledge and beliefs specific to TBI care. As nurses' perceived knowledge and beliefs are known to guide their practice behaviors, this assessment is important to overall TBI outcomes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate pediatric nurses' evidence-based perceived knowledge and beliefs in providing care for children and adolescents with moderate-to-severe TBI. DESIGN AND METHODS: Data for this study were obtained from a larger parent study on nurses' perceptions of caring for patients of all ages with moderate-to-severe TBI. The parent study was an exploratory, cross-sectional electronic survey of registered nurses across all hospital departments within a large Midwestern health system. Only data specific to pediatric nurses (n = 330) were analyzed for this study. Descriptive statistics and latent class analysis (LCA) were performed.
RESULTS: Pediatric nurses, on average, were 38.79 years, female (90.37%), had over a decade of nursing experience (13.55 years), and practiced as a staff nurse (80.07%) on an inpatient unit (45.51%). Findings indicated pediatric nurses reported overall low levels of evidence-based perceived knowledge and had inaccurate beliefs about caring for patients with TBI. LCA indicated two distinct homogenous subgroups specific to evidence-based perceived knowledge: low (41%) and high (59%). Nurses in the low evidence-based perceived knowledge group were younger, had less nursing experience, worked primarily on an inpatient unit, and cared for patients with TBI at a higher frequency compared to high evidence-based perceived knowledge nurses. Additionally, there were significant differences in beliefs about sex-based patient differences after TBI and the role of nurses in caring for patients with TBI based on level of evidence-based perceived knowledge. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Assessing nurses' perceived knowledge and beliefs of evidence-based practice is a foundational step toward implementing evidence-based care for patients with moderate-to-severe TBI. Implications of these findings indicate the need to provide additional education to increase pediatric nurses' perceived knowledge and ensure accurate beliefs about evidence-based TBI care.