Video-assisted teaching program significantly boosts nursing students' insulin therapy knowledge and skills

Effective management of insulin therapy is critical for patients with diabetes, requiring precise administration and comprehensive patient education. As frontline healthcare providers, nurses play a pivotal role in both administering insulin and empowering patients to self-manage their condition. Traditional teaching methods, while foundational, can sometimes fall short in providing the dynamic, visual learning experiences necessary for complex procedural skills like insulin injection. This study addresses the gap by evaluating whether video-assisted teaching can enhance the learning outcomes for nursing students, preparing them more effectively for clinical practice.

A quasi-experimental study was conducted with 117 B.Sc. Nursing students from two Kathmandu University-affiliated colleges between March and May 2024. The intervention group (n1=62) received both traditional demonstration and a 10-minute video instruction on insulin therapy. The control group (n2=55) received only the traditional demonstration. Baseline demographic data, knowledge, and skills were assessed using self-administered questionnaires and a checklist. Post-intervention assessments were performed after four weeks to measure changes in knowledge and skill scores. Data analysis utilized descriptive statistics and inferential tests including t-test, Mann-Whitney U-test, and Wilcoxon signed-rank test.

Both the intervention and control groups demonstrated significant improvements in their knowledge and skill scores from baseline to post-intervention (p value < 0.001 for both). This indicates that traditional demonstration alone is effective, but the addition of video instruction provided a substantial advantage. The intervention group, which received the 10-minute video instruction, showed a significantly higher increase in knowledge scores compared to the control group, with a p-value of 0.026. Similarly, the intervention group exhibited a significantly greater improvement in skill scores, evidenced by a p-value of <0.001. This suggests that the visual and dynamic nature of video instruction effectively reinforces learning and skill acquisition beyond conventional methods. The study clearly highlights the added value of multimedia educational tools in nursing pedagogy.

The intervention group demonstrated a significantly higher increase in knowledge and skill scores compared to the control group, with p-values of 0.026 and <0.001, respectively.