Steps in creating EBN

EBN shares a similar production process to sibling abstract journals, Evidence-Based Medicine,¹ Evidence-Based Mental Health, and ACP Journal Club. It begins with the meticulous scrutiny of every issue of approximately 140 clinical journals (a complete list appears in each issue of EBN) by research associates, who have extensive research training and experience in information science and clinical epidemiology and biostatistics. After identifying every primary study and systematic review related to prevention or treatment, assessment (screening or diagnosis), prognosis, causation, quality assurance, economics of healthcare programmes or interventions, clinical prediction guides, and qualitative studies, they apply appropriate methodological criteria outlined in the Purpose and Procedure section of each issue. In the next step, each article that “passes” the appraisal is reviewed by the 3 editors to identify those of most relevance to nursing practice. Because we do not have expertise in all areas of nursing, colleagues from around the world help us to determine the relevance of some of the articles. The third step involves the preparation of a structured abstract that summarises the question(s), design, setting, patients, results, and evidence-based conclusions for each of the articles that have been selected for inclusion. In step 4, the associate editors collaborate with the research associate in editing each abstract. We then invite a nurse with expertise in the topic area to write a commentary that discusses whether and how the study results might be implemented in nursing practice. In step 5, the …