Effectiveness of an e-book in enhancing knowledge, coping behaviors and preventive strategies for sexual harassment...

To evaluate the effectiveness of an interactive e-book in improving new nurses' knowledge, coping behaviors and preventive strategies for sexual harassment prevention, while also assessing its impact on learning motivation.

Sexual harassment has a detrimental effect on nurses' physical and mental well-being, as well as on patient safety, with new nurses being particularly vulnerable.

A single centre, randomized controlled study.

The study included 102 new nurses with less than 6 months of experience, recruited from a medical center in Taiwan. Participants were randomly assigned to the intervention group (e-book, n = 51) or the control group (video and manual, n = 51). Scales assessing sexual harassment prevention knowledge, coping behaviors, prevention strategies and learning motivation were used at baseline (T1), post-course (T2) and 2 weeks after the course (T3).

Baseline measurements were similar between groups. The intervention group had significantly higher scores in prevention knowledge, strategies and learning motivation (p = 0.001; p = 0.05; p < 0.001) compared with the control group, though coping behavior scores were not statistically different (p = 0.228). Group and time effects were significant at T3 for prevention knowledge (p = 0.039), strategies (p = 0.042) and learning motivation (p < 0.001).

The e-book may enhance new nurses' knowledge and learning motivation for sexual harassment prevention, offering potential advantages over video/manual-based methods. Incorporating interactive e-books into nurse training programs could improve the effectiveness of sexual harassment prevention education.

This study was registered at the Clinical Research Information Service (NCT04139720.) on 30 January 2020 and the participant recruitment was initiated in 11 April 2020.