Computer anxiety in nursing: an investigation from Turkish nurses

The purpose of this study was to determine and analyze levels of computer anxiety in nurses at a public university hospital in Turkey. This study investigated the dimensions of computer anxiety in terms of computer literacy, self-efficacy, physical arousal, affective feelings, positive beliefs, and negative beliefs. Moreover in this study it was aimed to analyze relationships among computer anxiety and some characteristics of nurses (age, gender etc.). This study based on Beckers and Schmidt's computer anxiety model. The Beckers and Schmidt's Computer Anxiety Scale (BSCAS) was used for data collection. BSCAS comprises six factors: computer literacy, self-efficacy, physical arousal in the presence of computers, affective feelings towards computers, positive beliefs, and negative beliefs. At the end of the data collection period, 175 nurses were received from the population. The response rate was 43.75%. This study showed that a majority of nurses had medium levels of computer anxiety. Overall computer anxiety means score was 12.11±1.72. Computer anxiety has significant relationship with age (r=-.153; p<.05), personal computer ownership (r=.171; p<.05). The highest correlation was between overall computer anxiety and self efficacy (r=-.859), the lowest correlation was between overall computer and negative beliefs (r=-.653). Multiple regression analysis revealed that computer anxiety of nurses was predicted significantly by self efficacy, affective feelings, physical arousal, computer literacy, positive beliefs, and negative beliefs, respectively.