On Nursing Theories and Evidence

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Abstract
Purpose: To expand the understanding of what constitutes evidence for theory‐guided, evidence‐based nursing practice from a narrow focus on empirics to a more comprehensive focus on diverse patterns of knowing.Organizing construct: Carper's four fundamental patterns of knowing in nursing—empirical, ethical, personal, and aesthetic—are required for nursing practice. A different mode of inquiry is required to develop knowledge about and evidence for each pattern.Conclusions: Theory, inquiry, and evidence are inextricably linked. Each pattern of knowing can be considered a type of theory, and the modes of inquiry appropriate to the generation and testing of each type of theory provide diverse sources of data for evidence‐based nursing practice. Different kinds of nursing theories provide different lenses for critiquing and interpreting the different kinds of evidence essential for theory‐guided, evidence‐based holistic nursing practice.

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