Can Learning the ISBARR Framework Help to Address Nursing Students' Perceived Anxiety and Confidence Levels Associated With Handover Reports?

BACKGROUND Standardized communication frameworks are believed to help students feel more confident and less anxious about handover reports. One of the handover communication frameworks being used in nursing programs was the ISBARR framework (Identify, Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation, and Repeat). The aim was to explore whether learning the ISBARR framework affected nursing students' perceived anxiety and confidence levels associated with handover reports. METHOD The study tested null hypotheses by analyzing pre- and posttest data collected with the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2) survey. Three qualitative questions were included in the posttest to compare with the quantitative data. Statistical significance was set at p = .02. RESULTS The results revealed that learning the framework had a strong effect in reducing the perceived somatic anxiety levels, a medium effect on increasing perceived confidence levels, and a medium effect in reducing the perceived cognitive anxiety levels. CONCLUSION Findings suggested that learning the standardized framework may help to address students' perceived anxiety and confidence levels associated with handover reports and generate a mental picture of handover reports.