Effects of an Online Virtual Intravenous Pump Learning Module on Nursing Student's Competence and Confidence Programming an Electronic Intravenous Infusion Pump

Tuesday, 14 July 2009

Marian Luctkar-Flude, MScN
Cheryl Pulling, RN, MSN
School of Nursing, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada

Learning Objective 1: The learner will be able to describe effects of a virtual intravenous pump learning module on nursing students’ competence and confidence programming electronic intravenous pumps

Learning Objective 2: The learner will be able to describe nursing student satisfaction with an online virtual intravenous pump learning module

Purpose: Programming electronic intravenous infusion pumps is a technical skill that challenges most nursing students and may cause harm to patients when used improperly.  The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether an innovative virtual IV pump educational module will increase nursing student competence and confidence in programming an electronic intravenous infusion pump, and to describe learner satisfaction with the educational module.

Methods: Nursing students in their third year medical-surgical clinical rotation will be approached to participate. In addition to the current required readings pertaining to intravenous pumps, students in the experimental group will complete an online virtual intravenous pump educational module.  Participants will be evaluated on their ability to program the intravenous infusion pump and will complete a survey about their confidence using the pump and their satisfaction with the online learning module. Collected data will be entered into an SPSS database for analysis.  Appropriate statistical analyses, such as frequencies, means, standard deviations and analyses of variance will be conducted.

Results: Data collection and evaluation of results is ongoing. Data analysis is expected to be completed by March 2009.

Conclusion: It is anticipated that students completing the online virtual intravenous pump educational module will demonstrate greater competence and confidence in programming electronic intravenous infusion pumps.