Dissertation (MSc Nursing Education in Nursing and Midwifery)
The study at hand, calls for an effective of evidence-based practice training on improving competence on clinical decision-making among undergraduate nursing students in Tanzania. This is motivated by the fact that, the Tanzania Nurses and Midwifery Council intends to improve its regulatory tools and scope of standards practice as a references material. This is mainly done in order to guide the practice of nursing and midwifery students. However, one of the flaws of the tools is that they just provide a foundation for outcomes standards on Evidence-based practice of proficiency. The current practice of nurses is that they do not provide evidence-based care to patients. Moreover, the availability tools do not describe how to make decision on EBP in clinical nursing practice. Basing on this controversy, the study followed quasi-experimental controlled study design using quantitative approach. This method was preferred by the researcher in order to collect reliable data. Hence, this interventional study was performed by two groups a total of 30 in an intervention group and 55 in a control group. Thus, eighty five nursing students were selected and assigned to allocate the intervention or control groups by systematic random sampling. Self-administered questionnaires were used at pre-test and post-test. Data was analysed by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences software number 20.0 for both descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings revealed that the mean age for study participants was 23.87 out of 85(SD=3.345) in control and intervention groups. However, the independent t-test showed significant difference (p<0.0001) between groups at baseline knowledge level, the t-test disqualifies for estimation intervention effect, therefore, ANCOVA test showed statistically difference mean was 8.7(p<0.001) on post intervention knowledge score increased for intervention group with F-value 308.9. Furthermore, the independent t-test showed attitude improved towards EBP decision-making at post-test revealed that attitude mean score was (M=41.39±3.107) for intervention group and (M=40.51±5.64) in the control group, p-value<0.001 with very large effect size (2.40). Also, Simple linear regression was done and found only intervention was effect EBP clinical decision making by estimate β of 6.718, p<0.001. Finally, based on these results EBP training was significant effects on knowledge, attitude and skills in clinical decision-making for undergraduate nursing students to provide high-quality and safe nursing care in clinical setting. Schools of nursing can use the findings should be done to conduct large scale study for look-out effectiveness for replication and to be valid in the user at all nursing institutions.