Evidence-Based Nursing and Gray Literature: Implications for Nursing Education

Librarians play a key role in the understanding, retrieval, and assessment of gray literature (also spelled grey literature) as it pertains to evidence-based clinical practice, particularly nursing. With the rise of evidence-based research and curriculum-specific requirements in advanced nursing programs, gray literature instruction has become a necessity rather than a nicety. References to gray literature are not restricted to structured literature reviews but serve broader purposes within evidence-based nursing, which aims to use the best available evidence to make informed decisions about patient care. Given the vast landscape and varied types of gray literature, identifying resources specific to nursing and quantifying their role in evidence-based nursing are challenging. Citation analysis can be used to identify types of gray literature types commonly found in nursing studies. This article seeks to establish the need for gray literature instruction in nursing curricula.