An exploratory study of computer anxiety in nurses.

This research focused on the interactions of nurses with computer technology and existence of anxiety. The problems investigated were: "Does computer anxiety exit in a selected population of nurses?," "Does exposure to computers reduce computer anxiety?," and "Is there a demographic profile that describes the computer anxious nurse?" Data were gathered using two self-report questionnaires: (a) demographic characteristics and questions about exposure to computers and (b) the Oetting Computer Anxiety Scale. All registered nurses (RNs) employed in a 750-bed tertiary-care hospital in a city of 500,000 were invited to participate. Of 600 RNs, 207 volunteered to participate. As a group, nurses were somewhat more anxious than the normative population and no descriptive profile describing a computer-anxious nurse was revealed. Persons reporting history of formal computer coursework evidenced less anxiety than the normative population or other nurses. It is this research's contention that deliberate instruction in computers reduces computer anxiety.