Iranian Journal of Medical Education

Introduction: Neonatal care unit nurses should acquire and maintain the necessary specialized knowledge for providing skillful and high quality care during their professional career. This study aimed to examine the impact of virtual-based education on nurses’ psychological empowerment in the level II neonatal care unit.

Methods: This quasi- experimental study was carried out in 2015 on 80 nurses working in level II neonatal care units of hospitals affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences; subjects were randomly assigned to two groups of intervention and control groups. The level of nurses’ psychological empowerment was measured using Spreitzer’s psychological empowerment questionnaire on the first day of study and after the course. For the intervention group, the educational content of level II neonatal cares was developed and presented on Namad System of the virtual faculty of Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) for two months. Data were analyzed using paired t-test, Fisher’s exact test, chi-square and independent t-test.

Results: The research units were homogeneous in all demographic variables except work experience in the neonatal unit. The respective mean scores and standard deviations of empowerment in the intervention and control groups were 61.57±7.8 and 56.74±6.386 (out of 84) before the intervention and 60.71±7.595 and 63.60±5.6 after the intervention. The results of the independent t-test and paired t-test showed that there was a statistically significant difference in the mean scores of psychological empowerment of the two groups before the intervention (p=0.006), of the control group before and after the intervention (p≤0.001), and of the intervention group before and after the intervention (p≤0.001).

Conclusion: The results indicated the effectiveness of virtual-based education on nurses’ psychological empowerment in level II neonatal care units. With regard to the benefits of virtual-based education, its application is recommended in continuing education programs for nurses.