Background: The nursing process is a way to develop medical students’ clinical decision-making skills and can be implemented on paper and electronically. The present study aimed to compare the effect of paper-based and electronic nursing processes in the clinical decision-making of nursing students.
Materials and Methods: This quasi-experimental study was carried out on 64 nursing students who were randomly classified into paper-based and electronic groups. The students were undergoing internships in the neurology and thorax departments of Ghaem Hospital in Mashhad, Iran. The intervention was comprised of a training workshop on the nursing process for the two groups. The participants were then asked to implement the nursing process using two methods (paper-based vs. electronic) for two weeks during the course. Every student was assigned to a patient daily and performed the nursing process after examining the patient according to their groups. Students were monitored during the process, and Luari’s clinical decision-making questionnaire was used before and after intervention in the two groups.
Results: 64 nursing students in equal group were participants. Clinical decision-making scores of the paper-based and electronic groups before and after intervention were 65.5 ± 3.2 vs. 63.3 ± 3.4 (range: 24-120), and 72.0 ± 9.2 vs. 78.8 ± 11.0, respectively. It means 9.9% and 24.2% improvements in the paper-based and electronic groups, indicating significant changes (p<0.05).
Conclusion: The students’ clinical decision-making was improved considerably higher in the electronic group. The results showed that the electronic method facilitated the implementation of the nursing process and improved clinical decision-making skills and is thus suggested in teaching the nursing process.