Background

The vision of the Emergency Department of Nykøbing is to create a department with a high professional standard, and to be known for their prioritization of research and development. To support the Emergency Department's vision, it has been decided to establish a Journal Club for Nurses.

Methods

The nurse's competencies and knowledge about using literature based on research, was examined through an anonymous questionnaire. The purpose was to identify the nurse's competencies and knowledge about evidence-based medicine and evidence-based nursing.

A steering committee with representatives from the department's leadership and the clinical specialist has been collected. They choose the topics from clinical practice and arrange the meetings.

Clinical guidelines has been developed for The Journal Club with descriptions of purpose, structure and the frames for the organization of the Journal Club. Also there has been collected relevant literature on critical article-reading and research-designs.

A repetition of the questionnaire to study the effect of Journal Club has been scheduled after one year.

Results

The questionnaire showed that 89% of the nurses were reading professional literature about nursing. Thereof did 83% primarily read in the Danish nursing-magazine "Sygeplejersken".

The questionnaire showed that 22,5% have knowledge of, or use searching on databases such as Pubmed, Cochrane, Cinahl.

61% of the nurses have knowledge of quantitative research. Thereof, 22.5% of the nurses knows about one or more research methods within the quantitative research tradition.

58.7% has knowledge about qualitative research. Thereof, 22.8% has knowledge of one or more research methods.

There has been held two Journal Clubs for Nurses, and there has been a great support and interest in participating. The evaluation has shown that all participants think that especially the professional discussion after the presentation is valuable. 83% of the participants think that their participation in The Journal Club has an affect to their clinical practice.

Conclusion

Journal Club for Nurses is a success, because the nurses believe they're increasing their competence through participation. At present we don't have data to document a change of culture or an increased competence of the nurses, but we have created a valuable space for nurses' professionalism in emergency department.