Results from the Use of Application to Promote Nursing Students’ Knowledge and Clinical Judgment in Providing Care for Elderly Patients with Delirium

Abstract

Delirium in older people commonly occurs during their acute illness and hospitalization. Most nursing students are lack of knowledge to properly manage delirium.  Using the application along with the traditional lecture to promote the students’ knowledge is needed. This one-group pretest-posttest quasi-experimental research design was conducted to study 1) the effectiveness of using the application on nursing students’ knowledge and 2) the effectiveness of using the application on nursing students’ clinical judgment to provide care for elderly patients. The samples of 80 third-year nursing students in academic year of 2020 from Boromarajonani College of Nursing Sanpasithiprasong were selected to the study using purposive sampling methods. Research tools were the measurement of knowledge and clinical judgment to provide care for elderly patients with delirium and the satisfaction of nursing students toward application questionnaires. The interventional tool was the application developed by the researchers. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and paired t-test.

There were 3 significant findings gained from the study: 1) students’ knowledge after using the application (=12.31, SD=3.01) was significantly higher than before using the application (=8.66, SD=2.92), 2) students’ clinical judgement to provide care for elderly patients with delirium after using the application (=6.58, SD=2.39) was significantly higher than before using the application (=5.09, SD=1.99), both with p-value of 0.001, and 3) the average scores of students’ satisfaction on the application was at a high level (=4.37, SD=0.62). This study findings suggest that using the application can improve nursing students’ knowledge and clinical judgment in providing proper care for elderly patients with delirium.