Adoption of an Internet-based patient education programme in psychiatric hospitals

Internet-based patient support systems are widely assumed to predict a future trend in patient education. Coherent information is still lacking on how patient education is adopted in psychiatric hospitals and how information technology is used in it. Our aim was to describe nurses' adoption of an Internet-based patient education programme and the variables explaining it. The study was based on Rogers' model of the diffusion of innovation. The Internet-based patient education sessions were carried out by nurses on nine acute psychiatric inpatient wards in two Finnish hospitals. They were evaluated with reports and analysed statistically. Out of 100 nurses, 83 adopted the programme during the study period. The nurses fell into Rogers' groups, late majority (72%), laggards (17%), early majority (7%), early adopters (3%) and innovators (1%). Three groups were formed according to their activity: laggards, late majority, adopters (including early majority, early adopters, innovators). There was a statistical difference between the nurses' programme adoption between the two hospitals (P= 0.045): more laggards (65% vs. 35%) and adopters (73% vs. 27%) in the same hospital. The findings help to provide insight into the contexts and settings when adopting information technology programmes in the area of mental health care.