Beyond Checklists: A Nursing Informatics Education Strategy for Undergraduate Nursing Students Appraising Health Information on Social Networking Sites (SNS)

Abstract

Increasingly internet social networking sites are used in health care to support, communicate, and offer information platforms between health care providers, users, and the public. Undergraduate nursing students draw on various sources of evidence to inform best-practice decisions in collaboration with patients and the health care team. Student or patient-initiated access of information from social networking sites necessitates high levels of informatics literacy. While students may reveal adept social networking site navigation skills, their capacity to appraise and apply information from these sites to their nursing practice, in ways that demonstrate informatics competence, requires further exploration. The purpose of this education project was to describe how students’ informatics competence was enriched through the development and implementation of a Credibility, Argument, Purpose and Evidence guide, compared to a previously implemented checklist as part of a digital health assignment. The Constructivist Online Learning Environment Survey evaluated student-learning perceptions using the new guide as well as the previously utilized checklist. The developed guide improved students’ perceptions of their ability to appraise social networking sites. Results revealed an improvement in students’ appreciation of the significance of moving beyond the use of checklists when appraising and evaluating social networking sites. Educational institutions assume a prominent role as stakeholders in curriculum development, to equip nursing students with informatics skills to critically appraise and evaluate information from various social networking sites and technologies, alongside other health knowledge, for ethical evidence informed nursing practice.