Abstract

During the last decade, the advent of the personal digital assistant (PDA) and the development of clinical software specific to nursing practice have changed the way that many nurses manage information and workload. More recently, PDAs have become a standard tool in undergraduate nursing education. Though there is substantial discussion in the literature on PDA technology, the emphasis there has been descriptive and anecdotal. Since 2002, nurse authors have reported that PDA use has reduced medication errors and streamlined data gathering. This has lead to speculation that use of the PDA is a clinical tool that supports evidence-based practice and the complex thinking necessary for sound clinical decision-making. Such speculation has been one factor in the rapid adoption of the PDA by many baccalaureate programs. However, there is a paucity of research supporting this conjecture. In fact, the PDA has been accepted as a tool that supports evidence-based practice and clinical decision-making in the absence of validation. The anecdotal data reported are insufficient to support the extension of this device in both nursing practice and education. Hence, the objective of this study was to provide some quantitative validation for the future application of this promising clinical and educational tool.

Description

This dissertation has also been disseminated through the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. Dissertation/thesis number: 3398575; ProQuest document ID: 250777184. The author still retains copyright.

Author Details

Carol S. Gorelick, PhD, MSN

Sigma Membership

Non-member

Type

Dissertation

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

Descriptive/Correlational

Research Approach

Quantitative Research

Keywords:

Nursing Students, Nursing Education, Hand-Held Computer Technology, Clinical Decision-Making

Advisor

Carolyn J. Nickerson

Second Advisor

Gladys Husted

Third Advisor

Lenore Resnick

Fourth Advisor

Gibbs Kanyonga

Degree

PhD

Degree Grantor

Duquesne University

Degree Year

2010

Rights Holder

All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.

All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Review Type

None: Degree-based Submission

Acquisition

Proxy-submission

Date of Issue

2022-06-09

Full Text of Presentation

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