Nursing and midwifery students’ attitudes to computer use in healthcare

Abstract

Background & Aim: Nurses are exposed to the changing demands in technology as they execute their patient-related duties in the workplace. Integration of information technology (IT) in healthcare systems improves the quality of care provided. Nursing and midwifery students with prior exposure to computers tend to have a positive influence of IT. This study was carried out to determine the attitudes of the students of nursing and midwifery at School of Health to the use of computers in healthcare. Methods & Materials: The sample was composed of 247 nursing and midwifery students selected by using non-probability sampling method. Survey method and pretest for attitudes toward computers in healthcare scale were used in data collection. Chi-square significance test was conducted in data analysis. Results: About 94.3% of the students were female, 48.6% were graduates of regular high school, 58.7% were students of nursing and 32.8% were 2nd year students. Moreover, 62.6% of the students had a computer, 80.2% took a computer course, 47.0% used the computer for 1-3 h/day, 96% considered computer use necessary for their profession and 96.8% found it necessary for their profession to possess a computer. It was found that 45.3% of the students were enthusiastic view of the potential of computer use in healthcare. Conclusion: There was no significant difference between the nursing students and the midwifery students in terms of attitudes to use of computers in healthcare, whereas a significant relationship was found between computer use in healthcare and the daily duration of daily computer use and whether the students possess a computer. This result is significant in terms of planning, applying, and integrating hospital information systems.

Keywords

• content validity
• instrument development
• psychometric properties
• questionnaire