Effectiveness of integrated teaching by patient versus conventional teaching method regarding management of patients with cancer breast upon behavioral outcomes of nursing students

Patients suffering from chronic illness can be effective and successful in teaching medical and nursing students about the particular disease condition they are suffering. The study was aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of integrated teaching by patient versus conventional teaching method regarding management of patients with cancer breast upon behavioral outcomes of nursing students.

A true experimental study was conducted in which the data was collected after obtaining consent from 72 nursing students who were randomly assigned equally into control and experimental group of the study. Structured questionnaire and observational checklist for OSCE was used to behavioral outcomes of nursing students before and the after the intervention. Conventional method of teaching i.e, lecture cum discussion regarding management of patients with cancer breast was used for both the groups. Then the experimental group of participants were exposed to two patients with cancer breast in addition to conventional method of teaching to share the lived in experience of the disease course, treatment and the side effects. After one week, post-test was conducted for both the groups.

Study findings revealed that there was significant difference between pre-test (M=9.91, SD=1.76) and post-test knowledge score (M=16.88, SD=3.48) with 't' value of 11.03 in control group at p<0.001 level. There was also significant difference in knowledge scores between pre-test (M=9.55, SD=2.07) and post-test (M=18.16, SD=4.09) with 't' value of 11.89 in experimental group at p<0.001 level. It can be attributed to that there was no significant difference between integrated teaching by patient method and conventional lecture method in improving the knowledge and skill on management of patients with cancer breast among nursing students.

Although the Integrated teaching method and conventional teaching method are equally effective in improving the behavioural outcomes of the students, yet the integrated teaching method is an alternate powerful teaching tool that can be incorporated in nursing to make learning more interesting.