Effects of a structured online educational program course on nursing students' attitudes toward gender roles and women and children's violence abuse reports: A quasi-experimental evaluation.

Background: It is important to know the rights of women and children while shaping attitudes toward gender roles, violence against women, and reporting child abuse. To shape attitudes toward reporting abuse, women's and children's rights courses should be integrated into undergraduate nursing curriculum. It is important to develop positive attitudes of nursing students toward gender roles, violence against women, and reporting child abuse.

Objectives: The aim of the study was to evaluate the effects of a "women's-children's rights" online-educational program in a nursing curricula.

Design: A pretest-posttest follow-up with a control group quasi-experimental trial.

Settings: Nursing department of the state university in Turkey.

Participants: Fourth-year students (N = 62) of a nursing department at the state university in Turkey constituted the study sample. The students were divided into two groups: education and control groups with each group comprising 31 fourth-year nursing students.

Methods: The education group took the women's-children's rights online-course, whereas the control group did not. In both groups, baseline assessments were performed online using the "Gender Roles Attitude Scale," "Violence Against Women Attitude Scale," and "Healthcare Provider Attitudes Toward Child Maltreatment Reporting Scale." The posttest (T1) was conducted immediately after the 14-week course was completed. Follow-up was performed after 1 month (T2). Numbers, percentages, chi-square test, t-test, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, Pearson's correlation, and Duncan's test were conducted using SPSS 20.00 software.

Results: The education group's scores of attitudes toward gender roles, violence against women, and reporting child abuse/neglect were significantly higher than those of the control group (p < 0.05). After the online program, a significant difference between the groups and between the measurements was observed in the education group (p < 0.05).

Conclusions: The women's-children's rights online-course is an effective method in educating and enriching nursing students on women's and children's rights.