Using the ADDIE Model to Develop Online Continuing Education Courses on Caring for Nurses in Taiwan

I Taiwan, nurses’ working hours are loosely regulated, and unpaid overtime is common (Taiwan Healthcare Reform Foundation, 2011). Because of the high workload, local nurses lack the time and energy to pursue the 150 hours of continuing education classes mandated by the Taiwan Ministry of Health and Welfare every 6 years to renew the nursing license (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2013). The nurses also perceive themselves as less caring than they should be (Lee, Yang, Tsai, Tsai, & Tsai, 2011). Despite this, continuing education materials in Taiwan rarely address the issue of caring in nursing. To promote the quality of nursing care, a local Adventist Hospital implemented the SHARE philosophy (Sense people’s needs before they ask. Help each other out. Acknowledge people’s feelings. Respect the dignity and privacy of others. Explain what’s happening.) of humanistic caring for their hospital staff in clinical practice. However, in a previous study in this 3-year series (Hsu, Turton, Cheng, & Lee-Hsieh, 2013), the authors found that this hospital had never concretely defi ned SHARE, nor did it offer courses or seminars on how to practice SHARE in nursing. Moreover, through focus group interviews, the educational team found that nurses at the hospital could not articulate concrete concepts for SHARE. Having identifi ed gaps in knowledge, skills, and practice (DeSilets, Dickerson, & Lavin, 2013), the educational team proposed using the SHARE framework as a conceptual basis to develop an online continuing education curriculum on caring for the hospital. Online courses on caring, accessible to the nurses at any time, could be a solution to the problem of motivating busy nurses to attend courses. Because Taiwan is one of the world’s most Internet-accessible nations, the educational team constructed an online SHARE caring curriculum for the Background: A hospital in Taiwan committed to implementing a framework of caring in clinical practice. This study was conducted to develop online courses on caring for the hospital’s nurses. Method: The ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation) model was applied to develop and evaluate this caring curriculum. Concrete caring and uncaring behaviors were identifi ed through patient and nurse interviews. These were used to make 72 instructional videos and fi ve live-action movies. Evaluation tools included quizzes, self-evaluations, focus group interviews, and a measurement of caring behavior. Patients used the same instrument to evaluate the nurses. Results: Nurses’ self-evaluations showed positive results. No signifi cant difference was found between preand postcourse patient evaluations. Conclusion: This study shows the usefulness of ADDIE and provides a model for how research data and results can be used to inform administratively mandated organizational change. It also provides evidence on the effects of caring education. J Contin Educ Nurs. 2014;45(3):124-131. abstract