The integration of Information and Communication Technology into nursing

To identify and characterise different profiles of nurses' utilization of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and the Internet and to identify factors that can enhance or inhibit the use of these technologies within nursing.

An online survey of the 13,588 members of the Nurses Association of Barcelona who had a registered email account in 2006 was carried out. Factor analysis, cluster analysis and binomial logit model was undertaken.

Although most of the nurses (76.70%) are utilizing the Internet within their daily work, multivariate statistics analysis revealed two profiles of the adoption of ICT. The first profile (4.58%) represents those nurses who value ICT and the Internet so that it forms an integral part of their practice. This group is thus referred to as 'integrated nurses'. The second profile (95.42%) represents those nurses who place less emphasis on ICT and the Internet and are consequently labelled 'non-integrated nurses'. From the statistical modelling, it was observed that undertaking research activities an emphasis on international information and a belief that health information available on the Internet was 'very relevant' play a positive and significant role in the probability of being an integrated nurse.

The emerging world of the 'integrated nurse' cannot be adequately understood without examining how nurses make use of ICT and the Internet within nursing practice and the way this is shaped by institutional, technical and professional opportunities and constraints.