Evaluating the effectiveness of two teaching strategies on nursing students knowledge skills and attitudes of quality improvement and safety

Abstract

<p>In 1999, the Institute of Medicine published a report To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System, which found that 44,000-98,000 people die as a result of preventable medical errors each year. Following this report in 2005, the Quality and Safety for Nurses (QSEN) project was established which defined a set of six core competencies that all nursing students should possess at graduation. Since the IOM report and the establishment of QSEN, nurse educators have been challenged with discovering effective teaching strategies to infuse the QSEN competencies into the nursing curricula. The purpose of the quantitative, pretest/post-test control group design study was to examine at the effectiveness of two teaching strategies, online modules in conjunction with a flipped classroom discussion seminar (experimental group) versus online modules only (control group), on baccalaureate-nursing students&rsquo; knowledge, skills, and attitudes of the quality improvement (QI) and safety QSEN competencies. The online modules utilized in the study were developed by a group of experts through the Institute of Healthcare Improvement (IHI). Data were collected and analyzed using a sample of 64 senior baccalaureate nursing students from one university in the southeastern United States that completed a web-based pre-test and post-test instrument with items adapted from two existing tools measuring QSEN competences. Two MANOVA analysis used to examine group differences demonstrated a statistically significant similar omnibus effect (p=.028) between the experimental group and the control group for knowledge, comfort of skills, and attitudes. A MANOVA examining group<br />&nbsp;differences between the experimental group and the control group on knowledge, comfort with&nbsp;skills, and attitudes of patient safety was not statistically significant (p=.59).</p>