A Study of Personal Digital Assistants to Enhance Undergraduate Clinical Nursing Education

Abstract

This study reports on personal digital assistants (PDAs) as a means to prepare nurse professionals who value and seek current information. An interdisciplinary team of nursing and library faculty, information technology and bookstore staff, students, and educational consultants developed this project. A pre-post and comparative group design of second-degree students in the accelerated and traditional baccalaureate nursing degree (BSN) options was used to examine students' information-seeking behaviors, and the effectiveness and cost of innovation strategies associated with incorporation of PDAs into students' clinical practice. Results of this study support PDAs as an effective student learning resource, especially for reference materials. The student group with PDAs had increasing numbers of questions associated with clinical situations and a greater recognition of the need to use current resources. Students made substantial use of their PDAs and health team members, while decreasing reliance on textbooks and clinical faculty. Students' use of and satisfaction with this technology is linked to access speed and readability. Providing faculty with PDAs is recommended to enhance their comfort with and incorporation of PDAs into clinical teaching.

Value of wireless personal digital assistants for practice: perceptions of advanced practice nurses

“…Developed as personal information management tools to assist business professionals to track expenses, contacts and scheduling (Erdley 2006), healthcare professionals have employed PDAs in a variety of clinical applications to access a large number of clinical and reference material (Craig 2002). Because PDAs can be used at the bedside, many believe that these devices increase staff productivity (Craig 2002, Tooey & Mayo 2003, Miller et al 2005, reduce the incidence of diagnostic and medication error (Chen et al 2004, Galt et al 2005 and improve the quality of patient care (Spikiol 2005, White et al 2005, Honeybourne et al 2006.…”

The effect of Personal Digital Assistants in supporting the development of clinical reasoning in undergraduate nursing students: a systematic review

“…Findings from this study revealed an improvement in accuracy and time efficiency in comparison to textbook users 12 . Another study using a comparative group design concluded that PDAs are beneficial in reducing student dependence on faculty staff as a dominant resource means 13 .…”

“…Determinants for PDA adoption in nursing education identified in the literature include, issues with interface and the level of skill required to use the device 13,15,16 , limited recourses 16 and the costs to institutions to implement this technology 18,19 .These issues require further attention in the nursing literature due to the potential to impede the development of clinical reasoning among nursing students.…”

“…Overall, research into PDAs in nursing education is only beginning to emerge in the nursing literature with the first study conducted in 2001 at the University of Virginia with a sample of graduate nurses 11,18 . Since this time, momentum has gradually gained with the greatest aggregation of studies focusing on PDAs as a reference tool for nursing students 11,13,14,16,19,20 .…”

“…The majority of nursing quantitative studies use comparative 11,13 and quasi-experimental designs 12,16 . Mixed method design and qualitative studies are also largely present in the nursing literature 14,15,19 .…”