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Nursing Students' Guide to Evidence Based Research: Home

Resources for Nursing Students

WELCOME

Welcome to the Nursing Student's Guide to Evidence-Based Research. This guide is intended to help you to understand and practice evidence-based nursing, and learn to use the library and standard nursing research tools to find evidence for your assignments and your practice. We also hope that you will find the guide useful for many of your information needs as nursing students. We've included resources that relate to your assignments, resources for study and practice, tips for success as nursing students, links to professional news, and apps and social media sites you may find useful. We hope that you will help us keep the guide fresh and useful by sharing your favorite sites with us. To suggest a site to add, please send e-mail to library@atlanticcape.edu.

Success in Nursing School

Careers in Nursing
The Student Nurse Handbook
Self-Care for New and Student Nurses
Fast Facts for the Student Nurse
Transitioning from LPN/LVN to BSN
Hipaa Handbook for Nursing and Clinical Staff (2013 Update)

Nursing at Atlantic Cape

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Need to check out something about the program? Visit the web site of the Nursing Department.

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Getting Started with Nursing Research

As you work your way through the nursing program, you will have a number of assignments that require you to find, evaluate, and use research from the nursing literature. Your program uses evidence-based practice as a framework for learning about nursing, and many healthcare organizations make this a cornerstone of their practice, so this is an important part of your professional education.

Nursing research covers a wide range of topics, but clinical research is the core of the nursing literature. Several of your research assignments will require you to work with clinical research.

Clinical research encompasses any research that relates to the treatment of patients. Clinical research studies are the most numerous and important type of research in the field. They provide the basis for evidence-based practice. 

To learn more about other areas of nursing research, check out the box below.

There are three important subpages hiding under the Home tab of this guide:

Introduction to Evidence-Based Practice

Asking Research Questions

Reading and Evaluating Research

Please check out these sections to learn more about finding and using clinical research for your assignments and your practice.

More About Nursing Research

Nursing is a multifaceted profession that can be studied in many ways. Nurses conduct and publish research on all aspects of their profession, and as nursing students, you will need to become familiar with the literature in your field. Here are some of the major approaches to research in the field of nursing that compliment clinical research:

  • Public health is an important concern for nurses; some of the public health research falls into the category of clinical research, but policy and other aspects of public health are also explored in the nursing research.
  • Philosophy of nursing and the ethics of care-giving are important areas of interest.
  • Workplace issues also form an important part of the nursing research. This literature includes studies about work conditions, attitudes, social interactions, gender, racial, and ethnic issues, among others.
  • Sociology of nursing looks at care-giving as a social activity.
  • Leadership, management and administration are important topics in nursing research.
  • Legal and regulatory issues are examined.
  • Nursing education is an important field of research.

Off Campus database access

Login required for off campus accessDatabases and eBooks can be accessed from Off Campus through the Off Campus Proxy Server ◄

Find the user name and password in Blackboard on the Institution page.

  • Students: Look under Student Tools to Stay Connected at Atlantic Cape.
  • Faculty: Look under Key information about Libraries and Tutoring.

 or you can email library@atlanticcape.edu for username and password.

♦ Off-campus access is limited to current students, faculty and staff of Atlantic Cape Community College ♦

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Credits

This guide was developed by Ellen Parker, Atlantic Cape Community College Libraries. Updated and revised by Leslie Murtha.
Originally published 2014.