Evidence-Based Practice in Nursing

Jean Craig is a research advisor with the Research Design Service of the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR RDS). This varied role entails working with nurses and other health care practitioners, methodologists, health care managers and members of the public to develop high quality, competitive research grant applications. She has worked as a pediatric nurse in a variety of acute hospitals and settings including the renowned Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital, South Africa's only dedicated child health institution, St Thomas' Hospital in London and Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool, one of Europe's largest children's hospitals. There, her role as the integrated care pathway coordinator for the cardiac intensive care and other cardiac units provided her with hands-on experience of the challenges of initiating organizational evidence-based practice changes that required buy-in from people from different professions. Her research career started in Liverpool where she worked as a research associate in the Evidence-Based Child Health Unit at the University of Liverpool, undertaking systematic reviews and contributing to the development of National clinical guidelines. She was a member of the Alder Hey Children's NHS Trust Research Review Committee and helped to establish and run a Research Clinic at the Trust for clinicians developing research proposals. She established and led the Evidence-Based Practice Child Health module for post-graduates at the University of Liverpool. As a regional research adviser, she has an informal educational role in supporting learning about research methods. She is an independent member of the data monitoring and ethics committees for a number of trials, and a member of the trials adoption group for the Norwich Clinical Trials Unit. Jean has published on a wide range of nursing topics. She is co-editor of the first three editions of The Evidence-Based Practice Manual for Nurses, and is a member of the editorial board for the journal Pilot and Feasibility Studies. Research from her PhD (obtained in Liverpool University, UK) about temperature measurement in infants and children was published in The Lancet and the British Medical Journal.