Effect of the Flipped Classroom on Nursing Students' Skills Related to Communication with Caregivers and Hospitalized Children During Nursing Care

Background and Objectives: The use of new teaching methods, such as the "flipped classroom," in health education, is considered one of the important priorities of student education. The present study aimed to investigate the effects of the flipped classroom on the skills related to nursing students' communication with caregivers and hospitalized children during nursing care. Materials and Methods: In this semi-experimental study, 64 nursing students from the 6th semester of Hamedan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran, were selected using the census method and placed in two experimental and control groups. There was no intervention in the control group. The flipped classroom method was used in the test group to teach communication skills. For two groups, the communication skills of each nursing student with accompanying parent and hospitalized child while receiving nursing care based on the checklist were observed and recorded three times at one-week intervals. Moreover, in order to analyze the data, ANOVA, Chi-square, or Fisher's exact test was utilized using the STATA (version 14) software. Results: In all three observations, there was a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the test and the skills related to the control group's communication with hospitalized mothers and children (P<0.001). The average difference between the scores of students in the test group concerning mothers and hospitalized children in the third observation compared to the first observation, as well as in the third observation compared to the second observation, was significantly higher than that of the control group (P<0.001). Conclusion: The flipped classroom can be used as a suitable method to improve the level of communication skills of nursing students