Persuasive technology in teaching acute pain assessment in nursing: Results in learning based on pre and post-testing

Background Thousands of patients seek health services every day with complaints of pain. However, adequate pain assessment is still flawed, a fact that is partly related to gaps in professional learning on this topic. Innovative strategies such as the use of a virtual learning object mediated by persuasive technology in the learning of undergraduate nursing students can help to fill these gaps and to provide different ways of learning to learn. Objective To evaluate the results in learning among undergraduate nursing students about assessment of acute pain in adults and newborns, before and after an online educational intervention. Design This is a quasi-experimental, non-equivalent study using pre-and post-testing. Setting Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil. Participants 75 undergraduate nursing students. Methods Our study was conducted in three steps (pre-test, education intervention, post-test). Data were collected from November 2013 to February 2014. The educational intervention was performed using online access to virtual learning object about acute pain assessment, which students accessed on their mobile devices. Conclusion A significant difference was seen in student learning (p < 0.001) in the post-test compared with the pre-test results. The students understood the importance of the topic, and were satisfied and motivated by the technology and method applied. The use of persuasive technology such as small mobile devices as mediators of online educational interventions broadens learning spaces in an innovative, flexible, motivational, and promising manner.