Page 37 - Nursing Education in Malaysia

3/ tHE status of NursiNg iN Malaysia

Evidence-based Practice (EBP) in Malaysia is not
on nursing’s agenda
EBP is a problem solving approach to clinical practice that uses the best available
evidence along with nurses’ expertise and client preferences and values in making decisions
about care, requiring nurses to actively pursue the best scientific evidence (Potter & Perry,
2009). Evidence from research studies and the opinions of experts provide a basis for
making evidence-based changes in nursing care.

Since practicing nurses in Malaysia do not carry out research, they still need to develop
critical thinking skills to determine whether research evidence is relevant and appropriate
for their patients. In this context, Malaysian hospitals need expert nurses eg. Clinical
Nurse Specialist, prepared at Masters’ level, to pursue EBP as well as conduct at minimum
outcomes research and intervention research. Currently, this is not available.

NurSINg rESEarCH

In Malaysia, nursing research is taught to undergraduate students in all the four-year
Bachelor of Nursing programmes. How well it is taught and to what extent the teaching is
effective in producing “research-oriented” graduates depend to a large extent, on the ability
of the lecturers and the attitude of the institution. For example, in public universities, the
students’ research proposals would have to go through the Faculty’s Ethics Committee, and
on acceptance the committee would even provide financial assistance for data collection
and analysis. In addition, a few universities practice the interprofessional approach where
both nursing and medical students are being supervised in research by either nursing or
medical lecturers. This healthy attitude will promote more positive research culture among
doctors and nurses. Such a scenario, however, is more of an exception rather than the
rule.

The rule is that, in Malaysia, nursing research is not carried out. The research
culture is yet to be developed. As mentioned, diploma graduates dominate the clinical and
community setting, and since research is not part of the diploma curriculum, it would be
difficult to enforce or even introduce research culture without appropriate leadership in
research. Hence, for research culture to flourish, at minimum, the clinical setting must be
dominated by degree graduates and leadership provided by a clinical nurse specialist (a
nurse with Masters in clinical nursing).

Historically in nursing, research is not new. It began 140 years ago by Florence
Nightingale. In the US, research became a high priority in the 1950s and 1960s with
the development of graduate programmes and the growing number of nurses with
masters’ degrees and doctorates. During this period, the first research journal, NURSING
RESEARCH, was published. Studies conducted during the two decades focused on topics
such as nursing education, standards for nursing practice, nurses’ characteristics, staffing
patterns and quality of care.

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