Is distance education obligatory or a new trend? The effect of psychiatric nursing e-course on stigma

Purpose: To examine the effects of psychiatric nursing e-course taught by distance learning on students' beliefs about mental illnesses. Design and Methods: This study was conducted as a pretest, posttest, and follow-up quasi-experimental study with 147 nursing students. Findings: The results showed that the psychiatric nursing e-course significantly reduced the stigmatization total and dimension scale scores of the participants, and the effect continued in the follow-up measurement. The difference between the pretest and posttest stigmatization scores of the students who concentrated during virtual classes and those who found student–instructor interaction and virtual course materials sufficient was statistically significant. Practice Implications: Our results have shown that the psychiatric nursing e-course is effective on beliefs regarding stigmatization, and distance education is promising for nursing education to continue effectively. © 2021 Wiley Periodicals LLC.