Implementing evidence-based practice (EBP) changes in the clinical setting have been shown to improve the quality and safety of patient care. Patients experience positive outcomes, including reductions in length of stay, mortality rates, readmissions, hospital-acquired infections and conditions, falls and surgical site infections (Connor et al., 2023). Despite the extensive evidence supporting the implementation of EBP, the act of “implementing EBP” continues to be the most challenging step of the process (Tucker and Gallagher-Ford, 2019). Nurses continue to struggle with incorporating and sustaining EBP in their practice setting, and this begs the question, “Why is it so hard to implement EBP?”

Although nurses perceive and believe that research and EBP are essential to nursing practice, several barriers make it challenging to implement EBP practically. From an organizational standpoint, nurses cite time constraints and lack of dedicated time to engage in clinical inquiry work outside their work schedules (Hines et al., 2021; Jabonete and Roxas, 2022). Organizational and unit culture and readiness to implement change can also be a barrier (Berthelsen & Hølge-Hazelton, 2021; Hines et al., 2021). Access to resources, training and education on strategies to implement EBP are also cited (Hines et al., 2021; Jabonete and Roxas, 2022). Nurses face similar challenges from a professional perspective, expressing a lack of confidence in their ability to understand how EBP can be implemented in the real practice setting and the relevance of using research in their daily work (Hines et al., 2021; Jabonete and Roxas, 2022). Nurses also express not having the autonomy to make any meaningful change in the quality and safety of patient care (Berthelsen and Hølge-Hazelton, 2021). With these mounting challenges and barriers, it is easy to understand why nurses feel like implementing EBP is too hard.