JONA • Vol. 33, No. 7/8 • July/August 2003 397 Evidence-based practice guidelines are increasingly used by healthcare professionals to guide patient care and effect positive patient outcomes. These guidelines are usually based on laboratory-based pa- rameters and lack the psychosocial dimensions of patient care.The authors describe the process used by a hospital-based interdisciplinary team to suc- cessfully develop evidence-based psychosocial guidelines designed to foster hopefulness in pedi- atric patients with cancer, their families, and their healthcare providers. From these guidelines, 4 clini- cal care projects were developed and are described in this article. Evidence-based practice guidelines are used increasingly by healthcare professionals to direct patient care and ef- fect positive patient outcomes. These guidelines are fre- quently based on laboratory-based parameters, such as hy- perkalemia and hyponatremia, and diagnosis-specific clinical situations. 1-3 Such guidelines have contributed no- tably to medical and nursing practices. However, the art and science of direct patient care also include psychoso- cial dimensions. Direct care providers derive role-related meaning from being competent in both the technical and the psychosocial aspects of their roles. 4 Therefore, the pa- tient care services (PCS) leadership group in our hospital approved a plan to develop a team for translating psy- chosocial research findings into practice guidelines. The specific charge to this team was to focus on hope research related to adolescents with cancer and to develop evi- dence-based practice guidelines appropriate for the can- cer care setting at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Overview of Evidence-Based Practice Guidelines The term evidence-based practice is probably derived from the definition of evidence-based medicine, which is: “The conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of indi- vidual patients. The practice of evidence-based medicine means integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence from systematic research.” 5(p2) Evidence is considered to be clinically mean- ingful and trustworthy information relevant to the treat- ment-related issue at hand.Three types of sources are com- bined to form evidence-based guidelines: clinical expertise or clinician experience, patient preferences, and scientific findings. Clinician experience is an internal source of evidence derived from clinical training and classroom or other for- mal methods of didactic education, systematic observa- tions and analyses of previous clinical encounters, and the ability to weigh these sources in light of the individual pa- tient’s situation. Typically, clinician experience includes knowledge of biologic principles; access to benchmarking data; knowledge of local, national, or international stan- dards of practice; quality improvement data; and cost in- formation. 6-9 Implied is the inclusion of psychosocial prin- ciples of care and the clinician’s ability to accurately assess a patient’s unique psychosocial concerns or needs. Patient preference is also an internal source of evi- dence. It is the intentional solicitation by healthcare pro- fessionals of their patients’ treatment-related desires, JONA Volume 33, Number 7/8, pp 397-403 ©2003, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc. Translating Psychosocial Research Findings Into Practice Guidelines Pamela S. Hinds, PhD, RN, CS Sandy Mattox, MSN, RN Jami S. Gattuso, MSN, RN, CPON Gina Norman, BSN, RN Elizabeth Barnwell, BSN, RN Brent Powell, MDiv Mary Cofer, MS, PT Elizabeth Randall, BSN La-Kenya Kellum, BSN, RN Cathy Sanders, BS, RRT Authors’ affiliations: Director (Dr Hinds), Nursing Research Specialist (Ms Gattuso), Division of Nursing Research; Director (Ms Sanders), Respiratory Therapy; Coordinator (Ms Kellum and Ms Barwell), Hematology/Oncology; Clinical Nurse Specialist (Ms Mattox), Pediatric Oncology Nurse Specialist (Ms Norman), Bone Marrow Transplant Occupational Therapist (Ms Cofer), Educator (Ms Randall), Patient Care Services; Chaplain (Mr Powell), Division of Behavioral Medicine, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis,Tenn. Corresponding author: Pamela S. Hinds, PhD, RN, CS, Director, Di- vision of Nursing Research, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 332 N. Lauderdale, Memphis,TN 38105-2794 (pam.hinds@stjude.org).