The Dissemination of Research Findings and Translation into Practice

Abstract

A big problem in health care today is the research-practice gap, often caused by the failure to disseminate new knowledge from research and translate this into practice. Only a small percentage of research findings get translated into practice, due to three reasons: research results may not be disseminated at all, the findings are not disseminated to the right audiences, or the results are disseminated but are then not translated into practice. These problems occur in medicine, nursing and other health disciplines in many countries. Today there is a movement around the world to try to overcome these problems, and the terminology of this movement includes knowledge translation, evidence-based nursing, or evidence-based practice. This paper discusses some of the issues related to the dissemination of research findings into nursing and midwifery practice, and provides some strategies to help improve our sharing of new knowledge and innovations, so that patients are afforded the best care, and health care and nursing practices are based on timely knowledge derived from research.