The effects of web-based education and peer educationon the stoma care knowledge and skills of nursing students

This semi-experimental design-based study compares the effects of web-based education and peer education on the knowledge and skills of nursing students related to stoma care. The study participants were 67 first-year students of the Department of Nursing of the Faculty of Health Sciences of Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University, all of whom were registered on the Basics of Nursing course in the 2017–2018 spring term. The students were assigned to either the web-based education group (n=33) or the peer education group (n=34). All of the students first attended lectures and sat a pretest. The researcher made a video recording using a low-fidelity simulator in the skills laboratory for the web-based education group that was then viewed by the students. For the peer education group, the researcher provided peer education and stoma care training to the peer educators, who were given the opportunity to practice with the low-fidelity simulator. The peer educators then mentored the peer education group's practice with the low-fidelity simulator in the skills lab, and evaluated their work. The students in both experimental groups performed stoma care using the low-fidelity simulator under the supervision of the researcher, who then evaluated their performance. All of the participants in both groups then sat a posttest. In the interpretation of the statistical results, the level of significance was set at p<0.05. The mean pretest and posttest knowledge scores were 67.50±10.46 and 78.24±8.52 for the Peer Education group, respectively; and 71.21±12.50 and 77.27±9.69, respectively, for the Wed-Based Education Group. Significant increases were observed in the knowledge scores of both groups after receiving education (p<0.001 and p=0.002, respectively). The mean performance scores in the two tests were 67.50±10.46 and 78.24±8.52, respectively, for the Peer Education Group, and 71.21±12.50 and 77.27±9.69, respectively, for the Web-Based Education Group. No significant difference was noted between the mean performance scores of the two groups (t=0.674, p=0.502). The knowledge scores of both groups were found to have increased, from which it can be concluded that nursing education programs can benefit from both web-based and peer education.