Research utilization and attitudes towards research among nurses in Southern Iran in 2008

In the recent years, nurses haven't contributed much time to research (1). Evidence based medicine is becoming more and more popular, and it depends on the nurse's attitudes and knowledge towards research (2-4). Without studying the nurse's attitudes towards research, it won't be possible to determine if the findings of the researches are used to improve practice or not (5). The aim of this study is to assess research utilization and attitudes towards research among nurses in Southern Iran. This descriptive cross-sectional study was held in 2008 in Southern Iran. A total of 85 individuals were selected by using simple random sampling. The data was gathered using a 17 item questionnaire about research utilization and attitudes towards research. The demographic data of every participants were also asked. Answers were given on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’ (items were reversed in analyses so that a higher score indicated a more positive attitude). For this study from SPSS 13 software the descriptive statistics, Chi-square and T-teat were used. The mean age of subjects was 28.4. Among all the participants, 88% were women and 12% men and 30% had previous research activities. Nurses generally held positive attitudes towards research. Research activities had a statistically significant relationship with their research attitudes (P<0.01). Women had more favorable attitudes towards research than men (P<0.01). 80% of participants believed that research results can be utilized in health systems but only 7% had used their previous research results in their profession. Nurses generally had positive attitudes towards research. However we suggest that educating the nurses about research and about ways of using them in health systems can be helpful.