Nursing students' knowledge about an empowering discourse: Pretest and posttest assessment

Background: Supporting patient empowerment is an essential part of patient education. One possible supportive intervention is an empowering discourse. Nursing students should learn about empowering discourse during their education and acquire knowledge about this intervention. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate nursing students' knowledge about an empowering discourse in the atomistic and holistic categories in connection to a computer simulation program. The ultimate goal was to discover how students understand the structure of an empowering discourse as a whole. Methods: A one-group pretest-posttest design was adopted. The data were collected from graduating nursing students (n=42) in six Finnish polytechnics, through concept maps created in connection to a computer simulation program during pre- and posttest phases. Results: Results revealed that nursing students' knowledge of an empowering discourse improved after using the computer simulation as a learning method, but the students still lacked holistic knowledge of an empowering discourse. Conclusion: Based on this study, more attention should be paid to learning methods in nursing education so that students achieve a sufficient knowledge base to empower their patients. (C) 2015 Australian College of Nursing Ltd. Published by Elsevier Ltd.