Construction of nursing patent education in China based on the investigation of the requirements for nursing patent knowledge in postgraduates

Objective To investigate the requirements for patent knowledge in postgraduate nursing students so as to provide a basis for nursing patent education. Methods Full-time nursing postgraduates from 60 colleges and universities were investigated by self-directed questionnaires and a total of 119 validated questionnaires were returned. The survey included: general information; learning requirements for nursing patent knowledge (learning content and forms, incentive system and learning platforms learning approaches). Five-point Likert scale below was used: 1-Strongly disagree, 2-Disagree, 3-Neither agree nor disagree, 4-Agree, 5-Strongly agree. All statistical analyses were performed with IBM SPSS software (version 21.0). Quantitative data were expressed as mean±standard deviation. Ordered categorical variables were compared between two groups and among above three groups with use of the Mann Whitney rank sum test and the Kruskal-Wallis test respectively. P<0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results There was no significant difference in the effect of types of postgraduate (professional and academic) on the requirement for nursing patent knowledge in postgraduate (P>0.05), while significant differences were observed in those of paper publishing, project participation and patent application (P<0.05). Conclusion Nursing patent education can be well established only under the strong supports from the universities, faculties, supervisors as well as students, thereby developing the innovation of postgraduates. Key words: Postgraduates; Nursing; Patent; Intellectual property right; Learning requirements