Research engagement and evidence utilization among undergraduate- trained nurses in kenyan national referral hospitals: a mixed-methods investigation

Abstract

While Kenya's bachelor of science in Nnursing (BScN) policy framework positions graduate nurses as research-engaged change agents, rigorous multi-institutional empirical characterization of actual research involvement and evidence utilization patterns among BScN nurses in Kenyan tertiary settings is absent from the published literature. This study assessed the level of undergraduate-trained nurses' involvement in conducting and utilizing research in clinical practice at two national referral hospitals in Kenya. A concurrent embedded mixed-methods design combined a descriptive cross-sectional survey (n = 136; 92.5% response rate) with in-depth interviews of 20 purposely selected nurse managers at Moi teaching and Referral Hospital and Nakuru county teaching and referral hospital. Only 39.0% of nurses had conducted any research since graduation; among non-conductors, time constraints (47.0%) and resource deficits (28.9%) were the principal barriers, while motivational factors were markedly less prevalent (6.0%). Among research conductors,academic requirement (43.4%) outweighed intrinsic professional motivation (30.2%). Evidence utilization was nominally high (86.8%) but predominantly passive driven by institutional Standard Operating Procedures(76.3%) and Google (77.1%), with indexed databases accessed by only 17.0% of users. Qualitatively, an active-passive dichotomy was sustained by workload pressures, hierarchical inter professional cultures that discounted nurse-generated evidence, and the near-total absence of journal clubs, EBP committees, mentorship structures. BScN nurses demonstrate a consequential disconnect between formal research education and professional research engagement: evidence use is high in volume but low in rigour, and research conduct remains the domain of a motivated minority constrained by structural rather than attitudinal barriers. Hospitals should establish protected research time, seed funding for nurse-led projects, journal clubs,and EBP committees; national policy should link continuing professional development credits to documented research engagement.