Effects of Combined Teaching Strategies in Evidence-Based Learning for Student Nurses and Clinical Nurses

This two-year quasi-experimental study was conducted during August, 2013 to July, 2015. Student nurses (SN) and clinical nurses (RN) were recruited from one university and one medical center.
These who selected the elective course “evidence-based health care” were treated as experimental group (n=16) whereas the rest of students at the same year were treated as control group (n=71).
For clinical nurses, the willing to learn the contents of evidence-based health care was selected as criteria to be experimental group (n=29) or control group (n=77).
The experimental group received teaching and web learning and regular contacts whereas the control group received regular contacts only.
Data was collected at 6 points of times, which were: beginning of class (T0, baseline); class over (T1, 3rd month), T2(6th month), T3(9th month), T4(15th month), and T5(23th month).
Questionnaires included: computer literacy, knowledge and attitude towards science, critical thinking, Evidence-Based Practice Questionnaire, and The EBP beliefs scale.
All data were managed by SPSS-PC 18.0. Descriptive statistics and GEE analysis were performed where p<.05 was selected as level of significance. F test and post hoc comparison found that SN were younger than RN.
In addition, the ratio of lost follow-up was between 19.48% to 50%. The baseline comparison of outcomes showed a statistical difference existed in the computer literacy, critical thinking, and certain subscales in EBPQ.
Results of GEE found that certain outcome and the interactions between outcomes and time factors reached statistical significance when compared with the baseline, such as: In regard to the EBPQ scale,
the RN control group reported less knowledge and worse behaviors then the SN control group; compared with the baseline, RN experimental group reported better knowledge and behaviors than its interaction at 6th and 23th months.
The impact of this combined teaching strategies were discussed. The impact of this combined teaching strategies were discussed. Also, the ways to reduce the dropout rate were also mentioned within text.