Development and evaluation of an ICT-based educational tool in home care nursing: A pilot qualitative study

Background: In home care nursing, nurses are required to assess not only the care recipient’s condition but also their living environment. However, conventional paper-based case studies make it difficult for students to grasp the actual living environment. Objective: This study aimed to develop a learning support application (app) that combines 360-degree camera images with a paper-based case scenario and evaluate its usability among nursing students. Methods: Four areas inside the home of a single home care recipient were comprehensively photographed using a 360-degree camera. Thereafter, an app was developed to enable the users view the 360-degree images online by scanning with a smart device a QR code attached to a paper-based case scenario. To evaluate its usability, nursing students used the app and participated in semi-structured interviews. The data were analyzed using text mining techniques. Result: Text mining analysis revealed a co-occurrence network comprising four subgraphs. The representative keywords for each subgraph are as follows: Subgraph 1: Consider, Home, Fall, Risk, Environment Subgraph 2: Think, Danger, Imagination, Watch Subgraph 3: Assessment, Learning support app, Residential environment, Home settings, Use Subgraph 4: Life, See, Person, Situation Conclusion: The app supported students in understanding the home care environment and contributed to the development of care planning competence. Future studies should increase the number of cases and perform quantitative comparisons.