Evaluation of an educational intervention (edworkcases) involving clinical cases and Nursing students: a cross-sectional observational study

OBJECTIVE: to evaluate the impact of the (edworkcases) educational intervention on students’ evaluation outcomes in their clinical practices, their attitudes towards Nursing diagnoses, and their satisfaction. METHOD: this study used a cross-sectional observational design. The participants were 69 third-year Nursing students from a public university in Madrid, Spain. The data analysed in the study were the grades obtained by students for their clinical practices, as well as pre-post intervention scores on the Positions on Nursing Diagnosis Scale and a satisfaction survey. A means comparison by participation in the project (yes/no) was carried out using Student’s t-test. A means comparison by professor was conducted using Kruskal-Wallis tests. RESULTS: participation rate: 72.4%; 92% of the participants were women; median age = 21 years old. Statistically significant differences were found between participants and non-participants in terms of mean score in the Overall Evaluation and in the Case Study Evaluation, with higher scores found among the group of participants. The mean score for attitudes towards Nursing diagnoses was 99.9 (SD=2.8) before the intervention and 111.1 (SD=2.9) after the intervention [95% CI: 3.3-19.2]. CONCLUSION: the use of (edworkcases) as part of the practical training was considered satisfactory, enabling theory and practice to be combined and improving students’ attitudes towards Nursing diagnoses.