Effects of a Reflection-Based Health Guidance Skills Training Program, Part2: Public Health Nurses' Confidence in Their Skills and Simulated Patients' Readiness to Change

Background: PHNs need to provide health guidance to facilitate clients’ positive health behavior, to prevent lifestyle-related diseases. However, few studies in Japan have developed a health guidance skills training program for PHNs. The present study evaluates the effects of a reflection-based health skills training program for PHNs.

 Methods: The study design was pre-posttest quasi-experimental with a control group. Twenty-two PHNs participated in the study. The intervention group participated in a 4-day workshop over 3 months in 2012. We evaluated the effects of the program by measuring PHNs’ confidence in their health guidance skills and simulated patients’ readiness to change in response to health guidance delivered through role-playing exercises. Data were analyzed using a multivariate analysis of variance.

 Results: Participant characteristics and learning motivation did not significantly differ between the two groups at baseline. PHNs’ confidence and simulated patients’ readiness to change did not significantly differ between the two groups, the control group scored higher than the intervention group in all items.

 Conclusion: This is the first study in Japan to use a semi-experimental design to evaluate both PHNs’ and simulated patients’ reactions to a reflection-based training program for good health behavior. The intervention group may have lacked time to evaluate their adaptation and to practice what they had learned. Further research is needed to modify the program contents, lengthen the evaluation period, and examine effect of the program on a larger sample.