Nursing Managers’ Perspectives on Facilitators of and Barriers to Evidence-based Practice: A Cross-sectional Study

Background: Evidence-based practice (EBP) is one of the most important ways to empower nursing. The perspective of nursing managers about EBP plays an important role in the process of accepting the use of EBP by nurses. On the other hand, identifying facilitator of and barriers to EBP is necessary to improve its implementation. This study aimed to determine the facilitators of and barriers to EBP from the perspective of Iranian nursing managers.Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 335 top nursing managers, who were selected by stratified random sampling from Iranian universities of medical sciences, was studied. The research instruments included three electronic questionnaires for demographics, barriers and facilitators of EBP. Data were analyzed in SPSS software using descriptive statistics and appropriate analytical tests.Results: A total of 277 individuals participated in the study (response rate of 80%), 51.6% of them were female (n=143) with an average age of 43/6±7 years. Iranian nursing managers believed that organizational factors were the most important domain for both EBP facilitators (34.7± 9.2) and barriers (28.37±6.2). Furthermore, the most important facilitator of EBP was manager’s increased support and encouragement (4.23±1.19) and the most important barrier was physicians’ not cooperating with nurses in applying research results (3.80±1.29).Conclusion: The findings of this study revealed the most important facilitator of and barriers to EBP, and especially emphasized the key role of organizational factors in the implementation of EBP. Identifying facilitator and barriers and creating an organizational culture supporting evidence-based practice are effective interventions that result in improving the quality of nursing care.