The perception of nurse managers about nurses? research utilization barriers and facilitators and predictors

Aim: To explore barriers, facilitators and related factors for research utilization (RU) in practice by nurse managers in Izmir public teaching hospitals.Method: The study, which has been carried out in descriptive manner, is a sample of 220 nurse managers (85 %) employed in six teaching hospitals. A questionniare including demographic and work charachteristic of nurses and ?Research Utilizaiton Barriers Scale? have been used for data collection. Attitudes of nurse managers related to RU has been measured by 5-point Likert scale. Descriptive statistics, t test and one way ANOVA are used in the analysis of data.Findings: Among the factors that hinder RU, the highest score was obtained from ?organization?, and the lowest score was obtained from ?research? subscale. The item identified as most hindering barrier perceived by nurses in RU is ?the facilities are inadequate for implementation?. The item identified as most facilitator is the administration support for RU.Nurse managers who have undergraduate and graduate degrees, conduct reseach and take research course, rated the nurse factor as greater barriers. Nurse managers who have 16-20 years work experience, perceived presentation and research factor as less barriers. Nurse managers who attended research presentations in the past six months, perceived reseach factor as greater barriers than those who had no such experience.Conclusion: The results indicate the organizational factors are high level barriers to nurses RU that is necessary in order to overcome these barriers, administrators need to do organizational arrangements, create suitable reseach contex and culture, provide opportunity of research education and RU facilitators.Key words: Nurse managers, nurses? research utilization, barriers of research utilization, facilitators of research utilization, research attitudes, research activities.