This definition would do just as well for a porter. It might even do for a horse. It would not do for a policeman.
Research makes a difference.
The process of incorporating good quality research findings into nursing practice is, however, not straightforward. 3 Luker and Kenrick used qualitative techniques in an exploratory study of community nurse decision-making in the United Kingdom and determined that the nurses had an awareness of research but did not perceive it as informing their practice. This work also supported previous reports that nurses have difficulty in accessing and appraising published research, either because they do not have access to journals and libraries, or because they have not been taught how to find and appraise research. She also asked them to identify the one most common source from which they learned about research findings. Nurses working individually cannot hope to find and read even the highest quality research published each year, particularly when much of the research relevant to nursing is published in non-nursing journals.