The impact of drama education and in-class education on nursing students' attitudes toward violence against women: A randomized controlled study

Abstract

BackgroundNurses are the first to intervene in women who were subjected to violence. It is necessary to prepare prospective nurses for this difficult situation in order to enable them to provide quality health services to the victims. Nursing education is of critical importance in gaining nursing students sufficient competencies that they can utilize in intervening in such cases. ObjectivesThis study aims to determine the impact of creative drama education and in-class education on nursing students' attitudes toward violence against women. DesignThis study has a pre-test post-test parallel group randomized controlled design. SettingThis study was carried out at a nursing school in Turkey. ParticipantsSeventy-eight (n = 78) fourth-year undergraduate nursing science students. MethodIn the collection of data, personal information form and İSKEBE Violence Against Women Attitude Scale were used. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Wilcoxon Signed Rank test, and Mann-Whitney U test. ResultsA statistically significant difference was found between the pre-test and post-test scores (Z = −4.911, p = 0.0001) of the experimental group (Z = −5054, p = 0.0001) and the control group. No significant correlation was found between the post-test scores of the experimental and control groups (Effect size = 0.06, Z = −0.525, p = 0.600). ConclusionIt was found that in-class teaching and creative drama were effective in changing the attitude toward violence against women. However, neither method was found to be superior to the other.