Since the concept of evidence-based practices (EBPs) was first introduced in the medical literature (Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group, 1992), EBP remains a gold standard for decision making for healthcare providers, including nurses (International Council of Nurses, 2021). Evidence based practice is associated with improved treatment effectiveness, enhanced quality of care, better patient outcomes and greater job satisfaction. (Melnyk et al., 2021).

Saunders et al. (2019) reported that healthcare professionals' beliefs about the importance of EBP in improving the quality of care and patient outcomes were predominantly positive across all healthcare disciplines. However, these beliefs did not influence their behaviors regarding research findings implementation in practice. A persistent gap between research findings and clinical practice is still observed among healthcare professionals (Melnyk, 2021) and in general nursing activity (Westerlund et al., 2019). A recent systematic review (Berthelsen and Hølge-Hazelton, 2021) revealed that seven of the top 10 barriers to research findings use in clinical practice encountered by nurses were comprised of organizational factors.

This research‐practice gap is also observed among the specific population of intensive care nurses (Phillips, 2015). They appeared to be not trained enough to use research evidence in clinical practice (Phillips, 2015, Hweidi et al., 2017, Abuejheisheh et al., 2020, Al-Lenjawi et al., 2022). Communication related factors, organizational factors, nurse related factors and the quality of the research factors appeared to be the most frequently reported barriers (Phillips, 2015).

Despite an increased focus on EBP in critical care, there are little data to date on perceived barriers to research findings utilization in decisions and actions in bedside among critical care nurses and allied healthcare professionals. The objectives of this survey were to determine the perceived barriers to the implementation of research findings in clinical practice and to identify related factors among critical care nurses and allied health professionals working in French-speaking countries.