Write a paper of 500-750 words (not including the title page and reference page) on your proposed problem description for your EBP project. The paper should address the following:
Describe the background of the problem. Tell the story of the issue and why it deserves attention.
Identify the stakeholders/change agents. Who or what organizations are concerned about, may benefit from, or are affected by this proposal. List the interested parties, patients, students, agencies, Joint Commission, etc.
Provide the PICOT question. (PICOT: Population-Intervention-Comparison-Outcome-Timeframe). Make sure that the question fits with your graduate degree specialization.
State the purpose and project objectives in specific, realistic, and measurable terms. The objective should address what is to be gained. This is a restatement of the question, providing focus. Measurements need to be taken before and after the evidence-based practice is introduced to identify the expected changes.
Provide supportive rationale that the problem or issue is an important one for nursing to resolve using relevant professional literature sources.
Develop an initial reference list to ensure that there is adequate literature to support your evidence-based practice project. Follow the “Steps to an Efficient Search to Answer a Clinical Question” box in chapter 3 of the textbook. Refer to the “Search Method Example” as the format in which to compile this data.
The majority of references should be research articles. However, national sources such as Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), Department of Health and Human Resources (HHS), or the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and others may be used when you are gathering statistics to provide the rationale for the problem.
Once you get into the literature, you may find there is very little research to support your topic and you will have to start all over again. Remember, in order for this to be an evidence-based project, you must have enough evidence to introduce this as a practice change. If you find that you do not have enough supporting evidence to change a practice, then further research would need to be conducted.