The effect of web based and traditional self breast examination education on nursing students’ knowledge, skills and self-directed learning skills: A randomised controlled study

Aim

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of web based self-breast examination education on nursing students’ knowledge, skills, and self-directed learning skills in self-breast examination.

Background

Breast cancer is the most prevalent type of cancer among women, mortality rates are still high today. It is critical to improve the knowledge and skills and raise the self-awareness and health consciousness of individuals and society about self-breast examination, which is important in the early diagnosis of breast cancer, in order to lower mortality rates. Accordingly, one of the basic nursing skills aimed to be acquired by nursing students future nursing professionals is a self-breast examination.

Design

This study was conducted with a randomised, controlled, and experimental trial.

Methods

A total of 90 students were included in the study: the intervention group (n=43) and the control group (n=47). Intervention group students participated in web-based SBE Education.Control group students participated in SBE Education based on a traditional learning model.A Student Information Form, the Self-Breast Examination Knowledge Test, the Self-Breast Examination Skill Rubric, and the Self-Directed Learning Skills Scale were used in the study. Descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney U test, and Wilcoxon test were run to analyse the data.

Results

It was observed that the control group had a higher score in self-breast examination knowledge than the intervention group during the intervention period and the follow-up period after 15 days. No difference was noticed between the groups after the intervention for self-breast examination skill score, but the intervention group had a higher score than the control group for self-breast examination skill during the follow-up period after 15 days. No significant difference was noted between the groups for self-directed learning scores. This result validated hypothesis H₄. This result refuted hypothesis H₁, H_2, H₃, H₅.

Conclusions

Web based education on self-breast examination improves students’ breast self-examination skills and self-directed learning skills, but not their knowledge level of self-breast examination.