The effect of microlearning on nursing students’ knowledge and satisfaction in psychiatric emergencies education: a quasi-experimental study

Abstract Background Psychiatric emergencies, including suicidal behaviors, violence, and delirium, are complex conditions that require prompt intervention. Nurses and nursing students play a key role in the early identification and management of these situations; however, traditional teaching methods alone may not adequately meet their educational and clinical needs. Although microlearning has been widely studied in medical education, evidence on its use for teaching psychiatric emergencies to nursing students remains limited. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the effect of microlearning on nursing students’ knowledge and satisfaction in this area. Methods This single-group quasi-experimental study with a pre-test/post-test design with a 1-month follow-up was conducted on 35 final-year nursing students at Alborz University of Medical Sciences. Data collection tools included a demographic questionnaire, an online learning satisfaction questionnaire and a scenario-based psychiatric emergencies test. The educational intervention, consisting of four motion graphic contents, was delivered in a Learning Management System (LMS) and simultaneously in a Telegram messenger group, following Ebbinghaus’s repetition pattern. Data were collected in three stages (before, immediately after, and one month after) and the data were analyzed using repeated-measures analysis of variance and paired t-tests. Results The findings showed that the mean knowledge scores of the students increased significantly from 12 ± 2.7 at pre-test to 14.34 ± 2.74 immediately after the intervention, and remained 13.57 ± 2.72 at the one-month follow-up ( p < 0.001). The students reported acceptable satisfaction (mean score: 60.11 ± 9.45 out of 85). No significant association was observed between demographic variables and the extent of knowledge improvement. Conclusion The findings of this study suggest that microlearning may be an effective approach for improving knowledge and learning retention in psychiatric emergencies education. This method also led to acceptable satisfaction among nursing students. Given the independence of the effect from demographic characteristics, microlearning can be considered a viable educational strategy in nursing education.