Effectiveness of virtual training on nursing students' intentions to engage in evidence-based practice: a case study in Iran.

BACKGROUND

Evidence-based Practice (EBP) is essential for improving the quality of care, patient outcomes, and the cost-effectiveness of healthcare services. Curricula and innovative teaching methods, such as virtual education, should be strongly emphasized to foster nursing students' intentions to engage in the EBP process. This study investigated the effect of a virtual training program on nursing students' intentions to engage in EBP.

METHODS

This interventional study included 79 nursing students in the sixth and eighth semesters of the School of Nursing who had completed courses in nursing research and nursing information technology and had started their clinical training. A virtual training program on the intentions to engage in EBP was delivered through a website in the form of one module during a week. Questionnaires on demographic information and the Persian version of Intentions to Engage in EBP Process, originally developed by Rubin and Parrish (2010), were used to collect data before the intervention and one month later. Data were collected from March to April 2023 and analyzed using SPSS (version 21). Descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (independent samples t-test, paired t-test, chi-square test and analysis of covariance) were used. A significance level of ≤ 0.05 was utilized.

RESULTS

Prior to the intervention, an independent t-test revealed no statistically significant difference between the two groups (p = 0.15). However, post-intervention results indicated a statistically significant difference (p = 0.03), with the intervention group reporting higher intentions to engage in EBP (44.62 ± 3.67) compared to the control group (36.56 ± 3.53), demonstrating the effectiveness of the educational program. A paired t-test confirmed that the improvement within the intervention group was statistically significant (p = 0.02), whereas the change observed in the control group was not (p = 0.06).

CONCLUSIONS

This study demonstrated a change in undergraduate nursing students' intentions to engage in EBP following virtual training. Based on these findings, health policymakers, planners, and healthcare providers should prioritize strategies that empower and equip nursing students with EBP competencies to effectively implement EBP in their future professional practice.