The effect of flipped learning on nursing students’ knowledge and skills in administering inhaled medications: a randomized controlled study

Inhalation medications is commonly preferred in the treatment of respiratory diseases. However, despite its widespread use, many patients still fail to use inhalers correctly, which negatively affects treatment effectiveness. Therefore, training patients on proper inhaler use is crucial, and nurses, in particular, need to be competent in inhaler administration techniques. Based on this need, the present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of the flipped learning model on nursing students’ knowledge and learning skills related to the administration of medication via inhalation. The study involved a pre-test post-test open-label randomized clinical trial. The study sample consisted of 86 s-year nursing students who were randomly employed to intervention (n = 43) and control (n = 43) groups. The intervention group students were trained using the flipped learning model. Data were collected using the “Personal Information Form”, “Inhaler Medicines and Their Uses Knowledge Test” and “Self-Directed Learning Skills Scale”. The study revealed that the post-test knowledge scores of the intervention group were statistically significantly higher compared to the control group (p = 0.000) and such difference had a moderate effect (d = 0.67). It was further concluded that the retention test knowledge scores of the intervention group were statistically significantly higher compared to the control group (p = 0.000) and such difference had a high effect (d = 2.03). This study confirmed that the flipped learning was an effective method in improving nursing students’ knowledge on administering inhaled medications and developing their administering inhaled medication skills. The flipped learning method can be applied to different nursing-specific topics and on wider sample groups to improve nursing knowledge and skills. NCT06911268, date of the registration: November, 2024.