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Saturday, 29 October 2011
Learning Objective 1: describe methods used to develop an online immunization program
Learning Objective 2: compare differences in knowledge, attitudes, beliefs regarding immunizations between nursing students who used an online program and those that used traditional classroom methods.
Global health requires that nurses change their knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about the importance of immunizations across the lifespan. Despite knowing that immunizations can prevent illness and save lives many nurses have become complacent in obtaining immunizations or encouraging them. Misinformation, false beliefs, and negative attitudes contribute to under- immunization. Nurses, and especially nurse educators, play a key role in increasing knowledge, promoting positive attitudes, and dispelling false beliefs towards immunizations. In turn, providing education targeting immunizations should increase knowledge, positively impact beliefs, and attitudes which may improve immunization rates for both the public at large and healthcare workers. Many organizations, such as the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Healthy People 2010, have recommended immunization across the lifespan as global and national goals yet most of these goals are not being met in children, adolescents, and older adults. Immunization education is rarely ranked as a priority in nursing education. Based on this, a free online nursing curriculum, Nursing Initiative Promoting Immunization Training (NIP-IT.org), targeting immunizations was developed in partnership with the CDC. NIP-IT.org is a unique online technology-focused innovation that impacts the knowledge, attitudes and beliefs that nursing students have about immunizations. Nursing students from fifteen schools across the United States were asked to evaluate the effectiveness of NIP-IT in changing their knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs in a pre-test, post-test design. Results from this study will be shared.