Abstract
Although nurses are one of the largest groups of health professionals, minimal research has been conducted on their attitudes and expectations of alternative therapies. Consequently, this study investigated nurses' evidentiary expectations of conventional and alternative therapies and ascertained if there were differences in their expectations based on education, licensure, age, and years of being a nurse. For this descriptive study, surveys were distributed to 1,050 nurses with a 27% return (N = 284). The participants worked in three hospitals located in Indiana that ranged in size from approximately 100 to 600 beds. The majority of the participants were Caucasian (96%) and female (95%). Their age ranged from 22 to 63 years with a mean of 40 years. The evidentiary rules used in the study were adapted from Reilly and Taylor (1993). Results of the study showed that the nurses expected more scientific evidence for conventional therapies than alternative therapies. No significant interactions were found between evidentiary expectations and the four demographic variables (education, licensure, age, and years of being a nurse).