Effects of mobile learning for nursing students in clinical education: A meta-analysis

The objective of this meta-analysis was to assess the effects of mobile learning for nursing students in clinical nursing education. Five electronic databases including PubMed, CINAHL, EMBASE, the Cochrane library and Web of Science were searched for English language articles published on or before February 10, 2020. Two reviewers retrieved articles, evaluated quality and extracted data independently. Review Manager (RevMan) version 5.3 software was used to perform meta-analysis. A total of 9 studies including 580 nursing students receiving clinical nursing education met the inclusion criteria. The mobile learning intervention led to significant improvements in nursing students' skills (SMD = 1.22, 95% CI [0.29, 2.14], P = 0.009), knowledge (SMD = 0.43, 95% CI [0.11, 0.76], P = 0.009), satisfaction (SMD = 0.31, 95% CI [0.05, 0.56], P = 0.020), and confidence (SMD = 0.4, 95% CI [0.16, 0.63], P < 0.001) compared with the control group. Due to differences in experimental design among studies and limited data availability, we cautiously conclude that mobile learning has a beneficial effect on clinical nursing education for nursing students compared with conventional methods.