A meeting of the Evidence Based Nursing (EBN) Editorial Board took place on the 26th April in London. The meeting was attended by Claire Weinberg, Catherine Lucas, Claire Bower and Allison Lang from BMJ and the Editorial team including myself, Alison Twycross and Joanna Smith from the UK, Roberta Heale and Dorothy Forbes from Canada and Allison Shorten from the USA.
One key topic discussed was the use of technology to support engagement with EBN. As you may know the EBN Twitter Club runs 2 weekly with information regarding the club available via the EBN Blog. It was decided that Twitter may not be the best medium within which to run the Journal Club due to difficulties sharing rich and detailed information about a research article, its methodology and its potential impact on practice. Changes that we agreed are to firstly run the Journal Club monthly, to name it the EBN Journal Club, to link it to a theme and to a monthly podcast. It will run via the blog and possibly Facebook. We would very much welcome your comments on how best run an online Journal Club so please do contact us if you have any ideas or questions.
Face to face journal clubs have been successful as a place where knowledge can be shared and research findings discussed in relation to best clinical practice. This aside attendance at these meetings is not always satisfactory limiting the success and sustainability of journal clubs. Online journal clubs provide the opportunity for asynchronous discussion and members are able to take part in evidence-based discussion when it suits them and in the place where they live or work – See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20216996
The Cochrane Students Journal club is interesting – see http://csjconline.blogspot.co.uk/p/rules-and-regulations.html Each month a clinical scenario is presented. Students must then search the Cochrane library for a Systematic review that will answer specific questions and post the citation of the review. Later in the month a suitable search strategy and its result is presented and students must read the review and write a summary of how it applies in practice. Finally a critical appraisal of the review by an expert will be posted online. Members who are active on the Journal Club and send in relevant appraisals are awarded certificates. This seems like a lot of work but ultimately there is a reward for students which may be the way forward for other Journal clubs such as EBN – what do you think?