Theory focused practice: enhancing the evidence base for children’s nursing practice

The importance of providing an evidence-base for practice for all health professionals is not disputed and in recent years this has become a requirement. However there is an on-going dialogue regarding a theory-practice gap in nursing which suggests that many nurses still do not underpin their practice with evidence to support it. Reflective practice has been seen as a panacea for this but it has been suggested that even this process does not completely close the theory-practice gap. Contemporary nursing education focuses on student-led approaches and encourages critical reading and the application of research findings and other evidence to clinical practice. However, it may be argued that student and novice nurses have difficulty in both finding evidence and then applying it to their every day practice. Indeed it has been suggested that these groups are much more likely to look to their more experienced peers for advice than to actively search out evidence for themselves. This paper sets the scene for an...