Utilising Evidence Based Practice to Support Vulnerable Populations’ Access to Contemporary Health Care

Call for Papers

Nursing practice is changing within the context of a dynamic health care environment as it responds both to scientific findings and the challenges associated with ageing demographic trends. Increasingly, nurses are championing new approaches to health care, challenging inherent and traditional practices, and actively leading and engaging in clinical research within a range of specialist fields. Evidence based practice (EBP) ensures that health practitioners provide optimal patient care and is essential to contemporary health care environments that encourage reflective practice. Hospitalisation can be a frightening experience as people are confronted in a range of ways (e.g., by not knowing what to expect). Such fears may be compounded when the person has a mental illness, dementia, or intellectual disabilities, and there is a growing body of literature regarding health access concerns around vulnerable groups.

We welcome original research articles, reviews, and positional papers that illustrate the breadth/depth of EBP in various health care settings involving vulnerable groups and papers that contribute new knowledge, inform readers of topical innovations, and demonstrate how barriers to implementing EBP with vulnerable populations can be effectively overcome, that will create a healthy dialogue around its impact in contemporary, global health care practice. We are particularly interested in papers that promote the inclusion of vulnerable people from a clinical, practical, educational, or theoretical perspective to stimulate clinical and academic debate. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• EBP in relation to vulnerable populations (e.g., care of older people, people with intellectual disabilities, people with mental health challenges, and end of life care)
• Innovative projects that illustrate EBP and critically explore interprofessional/collaborative approaches
• How barriers to implementing EBP with vulnerable populations can be effectively overcome
• Inclusion of users and carers (i.e., patients and families) in the EBP process
• Creating an organisational culture of EBP
• Creative, educational initiatives that support the development of EBP in undergraduate and postgraduate nursing programmes

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal’s Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/nrp/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/submit/journals/nrp/ebp/ according to the following timetable:

Lead Guest Editor

• Sue Read, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Keele University and Clinical Education Centre, University Hospital of North Staffordshire, NHS Trust, City General Hospital, Newcastle Road, Staffordshire ST4 6QG, UK

Guest Editors

• Isabel Higgins, Older Person Care, School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Newcastle, University Drive, Callaghan, NSW, Australia
• Sian E. Maslin-Prothero, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital and Edith Cowan University , Joondalup, WA 6027, Australia
• Linda J. Patrick, Faculty of Nursing, University of Windsor, Canada