Anatomical Knowledge Retention in Third‐Year Nursing Students

Abstract

Human anatomy and physiology are fundamental courses in medical, allied health and nursing disciplines, and serve as a prerequisite for future clinical (Turney et al., 2007). The mounting evidence suggests great difficulty in transferring fundamental knowledge of these courses to clinical and coming years of these disciplines (Bhangu et al., 2010; Narnaware and Neumeier, 2019, 2020). However, most of the knowledge acquisition, transfer/lost, and retention studies have been carried out in medical students and allied health students and have been assessed rarely in nursing students. We have previously shown that the second-year nursing students retained approximately 71.0% of their first anatomical knowledge, losing about 29% within a year (Narnaware and Neumeier, 2020). However, anatomical knowledge transfer/loss, retention, and its application in third-year nursing students has not been assessed yet. Therefore, the present study's main objective is to assess the anatomical knowledge retention among third-year nursing students and determine if the retention level is organ system-specific. To assess the knowledge retention in third-year, nursing students were quizzed on eleven anatomy organ systems using the on-line quizzing system Kahoot. Each Kahoot quiz included nine to eleven knowledge and comprehension level multiple-choice questions. These scores were compared to first-year quiz scores on the same content to determine overall knowledge retention over the third-year. Data were statistically analyzed using SPSS II, and means were compared using two-way ANOVA. The scores are described for each organ system by reporting the mean and standard deviation (±SD). Statistical significance was set at P < 0.05 for all tests. The results show that there was a significant decrease in the overall mean score from 83.05 ± 8.34 (± SD) in the first year to 51.6 ± 12.5 (±SD) in the third-year (P=0.001). This equates to a 31.4% loss andd 68.6% overall retention of anatomical knowledge over two years. However, there was no significant difference in mean scores between the second and third-year nursing students. The mean score in third-year nursing students was lower by approximately 3.0% than the second-year students. System-specific knowledge retention was highest for the gastrointestinal (87.4%), respiration (86.0%), special senses (82.7%). This system-specific retention was followed by the genitourinary system (78.9%), integumentary system (76.0%), and nervous system (74.9%). Retention was lowest for the musculoskeletal (59.7%), lymphatic (system plus head & neck) (57.5 - 58%), cranial nerves (57.4%) and vascular system (50.9%). The present study reveals that nursing students retain less knowledge than first-year and second-year students but retain much higher anatomical knowledge than reported in medical and allied health students. The researchers are now investigating knowledge retention and its application in fourth-year nursing students. This study provides knowledge retention for different body systems. It also identifies where nursing students' knowledge retention gaps exist so that those can be addressed by developing a robust interventional strategy for nursing students in the future.