Nationwide Surveys on EBN and Qualitative Approach in Japan

Hirofumi TAKAGI and Etsuko NISHIYAMA

School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Niigata University, Japan

Background: While quantitative approaches are strongly recommended in Evidence Based Medicine, qualitative approaches must be thought to be more important in nursing research rather than quantitative ones. Therefore, we tried to elucidate the recognitions toward Evidence Based Nursing (EBN) and qualitative study in Japan.

Methods: We conducted the nationwide surveys twice of which subjects were members of the Nihon Kangokei Daigaku Kyougikai (Japanese Nursing College and University Association); i.e. 3,155 persons surveyed from November 2001 to January 2002 at the first, and 3,745 from December 2003 to February 2004 at the second, respectively. We mailed the questionnaire which included general background items such as age, gender, educational level, title, etc, and 51 items related with EBN in the first survey, and also 91 items in the second one, respectively.

Results:1)The first survey: 1,170 persons (37.1%) replied, where mean age were 41.7 years old in females and 51.1 in males, respectively. 71.7% answered positively that they know “ EBN”. 81.7% agreed with the necessity of the concept of EBN in nursing researchers. 83.2% had been studying in nursing field, of which 32.1% used quantitative methods such as statistics, 24.1% qualitative methods such as grounded theory, and 46.5% both of methods, respectively. 66.6% of respondents replied that qualitative study is more suitable to nursing research rather than quantitative one, while 44.1% answered that quantitative study is better than qualitative one.

2)The second survey: 1,118 persons (29.9%) replied, where the mean age were 41.7 years old in females and 49.1 in males, respectively. 87.9% answered as having knowledge of EBN, and 88.8% agreed with the necessity of EBN. We analyzed the data obtained from 695 persons who answered as having knowledge of qualitative methods and experience of qualitative study. 22.5% strongly thought that qualitative study has the validity, and 22.6% the reliability, respectively. 49.6% used some techniques to confirm the reliability of own qualitative studies, and 45.9% the validity, respectively (confirming group, CG). 30.8% in CG answered that the qualitative approaches have the reliability while only 14.1% in non-CG believed it. For the validity, 28.9% in CG and 16.7% in non-CG answered their faith, respectively.

Conclusion: It was found that most of nursing researchers agreed with the necessity of EBN, though qualitative approaches are thought to be more necessary in nursing research, and that the quality of qualitative study could be improved gradually according to the practice of qualitative study. This study was supported by a Grant-in-Aid from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Technology of Japan (No.13672447, 15390660).