Editorial: The evidence for evidence-based practice We live in an evidence-based world; at least, those of us at the receiving end of government policy do. While we are exhorted to provide the evidence for our practice, there is rarely a search for evidence that government policies are effective. Those of us who have been engaged in research projects funded by government departments, while grateful for the funding and grateful for the opportunity to generate new knowledge, know how often the policies that have driven the research project have been abandoned. Such is the attention span of governments. One such policy, in the UK and many other countries, is related to providing evidence of effective practice. This is, of course, a good thing but it is very rare to find evidence that evidence-based prac- tice makes a difference. For this reason, it is a great pleasure to draw attention on this page to a paper in this issue of JCN which, finally, seems to do this. I refer to the paper by Ahlqvist et al. (2006) on the effect of evidence-based guidelines on the handling of peripheral intravenous cannulae. Ahlqvist et al.’s (2006) study des- cribes the implementation of evidence- based guidelines in Sweden, related to handling of peripheral intravenous can- nulae, in one University hospital. The study is also collaborative between four Departments in the hospital and aca- demic nurses from two Universities. The area of study is well chosen because of the frequency of use of intravenous cannulae in hospitals and, in my experi- ence, the frequency of complications. Therefore, based on published evidence, it was relatively easy to draw up a series of criteria for best practice and these are listed in the paper. Thereafter, the com- plications of intravenous cannulation are quite easily graded and these criteria are also provided in the paper. The handling criteria fell under three areas of thrombophlebitis, care and handling and documentation. The results showed that there were statistically significant changes, indicating improvements, in frequency of thrombophlebitis and documentation. I am very pleased to report the pub- lication of this study in JCN and hope that readers will be encouraged to read it. The study by Ahlqvist et al. (2006) could easily be adapted to other areas of clinical practice and, because of the ubiquity of intravenous cannulation, this study surely has relevance beyond the shores and borders of Sweden. Roger Watson Editor Reference Ahlqvist M, Borgen A, Hagman S, Nazar I, Nilsson K, Nordin K, Valfridsson BS, So ¨ derland M & Nordstro ¨m G (2006) Handling of peripheral intravenous cannulae: effects of evidence-based clinical guidelines. Journal of Clinical Nursing 1 15, 1354–1361. ERRATUM In Watson (2006), the following error was published on page 1211: The reference Chan et al. (2006) was incorrectly cited, the correct citation is: Chan EA, Chung JWY, Wong TKS & Yang JCS (2006) An evaluation of nursing practice models in the context of the severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic in Hong Kong: a preliminary study. Journal of Clinical Nursing 15, 661–670. This paper (Chan et al. 2006) was not featured in this issue of JCN as stated in line seven of this editorial (Watson 2006) but in the June 2006 issue. We apologize for this error. References Chan EA, Chung JWY, Wong TKS & Yang JCS (2006) An evaluation of nursing practice models in the context of the severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic in Hong Kong: a preliminary study. Journal of Clinical Nursing 15, 661–670. Watson R (2006) Editorial: The use of clinical vignettes to study nursing. Journal of Clinical Nursing 15, 1221. Ó 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 1353