Comparison of the Effectiveness of Breast Cancer Education through Two Virtual Methods for Increasing Knowledge in Nurses

Abstract

Comparison of the Effectiveness of Breast Cancer Education through Two Virtual Methods for Increasing Knowledge in Nurses Forouzandeh Jannat1, Sadaf Alipour2,3, Fariba Noori1, Somayeh Ansari1, Tahereh Ashtab4, Amirhossein Eskandari5, Sepehr Boroumand Sani6, Marzieh Orouji1, Donya Goodarzi1, Fatemeh Dousti Amshaki4 1Department of Nursing, Arash Women’s Hospital, Tehran University of medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 2Breast Disease Research Center (BDRC), Cancer Institute, Tehran, Iran 3Department of Surgery, Arash Women’s Hospital, Tehran University of medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 4Department of Nursing, Razi Hospital, Tehran University of medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 5Ministry of health and Medical Education, Tehran, Iran 6Faculty of Medicine, Tehran University of Medicine, Tehran, Iran Article Info Abstract Article History: Received: 1 October 2021 Revised: 21 March 2022 Accepted: 23 March 2022 Online: 27 April 2022 Keywords: Breast cancer; education, effectiveness; virtual learning; nurses Corresponding Author: Fatemeh Dousti Amshaki Department of Nursing, Razi Hospital, Tehran University of medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran Email: fnda2006@yahoo.com Background: Virtual education today is about to become one of the most important educational methods in nursing. However, there have been few studies that examine the effectiveness of virtual education to increase knowledge towards breast cancer among nurses in Iran. Purpose: The aim of this study was to compare the knowledge towards breast cancer among nurses who were provided with two different methods of virtual training. Methods: This quasi-experimental study was conducted among 182 nurses in two hospitals in Tehran, Iran, who were randomly selected and divided into two groups of 91 nurses. Participants of the first group got virtual training about breast cancer in two sessions within two weeks by Skyroom. In the second group, the content was sent as educational messages by WhatsApp within two weeks. Participants’ knowledge in both groups was measured using valid and reliable questionnaires developed by the researchers as a pretest and three posttests, and the satisfaction of the participants was also measured. To analyze the data, analysis of variance, standard deviation, t-test and Tukey test were performed. Results: According to the average score observed in the post-test period, the score of the WhatsApp group was 7.62, significantly higher than the Skyroom group of 6.25. The scores of the three post-test were higher than the pre-test in the two groups (with no significant difference between the two groups, p-value = 0.825 in the first post-test), but the scores declined from the first to third tests, showing a decline in the learning effect with time. However, the slope was gentler in the WhatsApp group, indicating a more persistent learning effect. Conclusion: This study showed that teaching with educational messages through WhatsApp had a greater impact on the sustainability of learning than teaching via lecturing through Skyroom.