Sam is a recently graduated health professional, who during his time at university has been taught about evidence based practice (EBP). His first experience of implementing the five steps of EBP, asking an answerable question, acquiring the evidence, appraising the evidence, applying the evidence and assessing the process Liamputtong (2010), will be critically analysed in this essay. An encounter of qualitative and quantitative approaches to research, and how Sam can apply the evidence generated from a quantitative approach to evidence based clinical practice will be detailed below.

Evidence based practice can be defined as clinical decisions for individual patients derived from the most appropriate evidence available (Facchiano & Snyder, 2012). It is a nurse’s care of duty to use appropriate clinical practice that will best suit the needs of the patient. Implementation of EBP based on an understanding of research findings is a requirement of competency standards for Australian and New Zealand nurses and midwifes (Borbasi & Jackson, 2012).

Sam noticed conflicting practices while watching a routine wound clean; tap water was used instead of saline solution by one of his fellow nurses. This made Sam begin to think about what evidence there was to support using water, or if the nurse should have used saline instead. Sam decided to research this topic further, which comprised of him asking a targeted question that he could then translate into research. The clinical question was defined using PICO(T) which Borbasi & Jackson (2012) define as “Patient or population, intervention of interest or interest area, comparison intervention or comparison interest area and outcome of interest; now you can add T for time, although it is not always required” (p.197). By following this strategy the following criteria was determined; P – Patients with wounds requiring cleaning, I