EVIDENCE-BASED NURSING (Chapter 1). HEALTH DECISION-MAKING: ADVANCING EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICES.

Abstract

Nurses have to face daily clinical situations of uncertainty where they must make decisions that concern the care of the people who attend. The result of this decision making may lead to unjustified variability in care that results in inequalities in patient outcomes. The way to tackle this situation is to highlight the practical nurse based on scientific knowledge, that is, evidence-based nursing. This has been overcome by trial-error and progressing from "observation medicine" to McMaster's postulates and in recent decades nurses have national and international structures aimed at fostering evidence-based care.