ArticleBMC nursing2024
Acceptance of virtual patients as a continuous professional development approach among practicing nurses in primary health care settings in a low-income country: a quasi-experimental posttest setup design.
Article in BMC nursing, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- General Dementia Training for the Social Care Workforce: A Systematic Review.Journal of advanced nursing · 2026Pooled it
- Determinants of Mobile Learning Behavioral Intention Usage Among Nurses: A Nexus of UTAUT2 Model and Information System Success Model.Journal of nursing management · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundVirtual patients are an educational technological approach used in healthcare education. Its distinctive features have rendered virtual patient technology appealing for the training of medical and healthcare students, particularly in the enhancement of clinical reasoning. Virtual patients are less often applied for continuous professional development for practicing healthcare providers, and there is a scarcity of studies exploring this possibility. This study aimed to assess the acceptability of nurses for using virtual patients as a continuous professional development approach.
methodThe study used a quasi-experimental posttest setup design. The study was conducted in ten primary healthcare settings in Rwanda. Among 76 nurses who consented to participate in the study, 56 completed the intervention and responded to the study questionnaire. Following a one-week program of continuous professional development on four non-communicable diseases, the study used a self-administered questionnaire based on the Technology Acceptance Model 3 to collect data. Descriptive analysis served as the primary method for analyzing participants' responses. The study also used a correlation test to assess the relationship of variables.
resultsAcross all items in the questionnaire, the median response tended towards either agree or strongly agree, with only a minority number of participants expressing strong disagreement, disagreement, or neutrality. The results indicated a significant positive correlation between perceived usefulness and behavior intention (p < 0.001).
conclusionThe findings indicate an acceptability and behavioral intention of adopting virtual patients as an alternative continuous professional development approach among nurses working at health centers in Rwanda or other locations with similar contexts.
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Registered trials
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