DefinePK

Abstract

Critical thinking is an essential competency for nursing professionals, enabling them to make informed clinical decisions and ensure patient safety. In Pakistan, traditional lecture-based pedagogies dominate nursing education, often limiting the development of higher-order cognitive skills. Problem-based learning (PBL) has emerged as an effective student-centered strategy to enhance critical thinking, but its application in Pakistani nursing curricula remains limited. Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of problem-based learning in improving critical thinking skills among undergraduate nursing students in a tertiary care teaching hospital in Pakistan. Methods: A quasi-experimental pre- and post-intervention study was conducted from April to September 2024 at the NMC Multan. A total of 86 undergraduate nursing students were recruited through non-probability convenience sampling. Participants underwent six weeks of structured PBL sessions integrated into their curriculum. Critical thinking skills were assessed before and after the intervention using a validated critical thinking disposition inventory. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 25, employing paired t-tests and ANOVA to determine statistical significance, with a p-value ≤ 0.05 considered significant. Results: Post-intervention analysis revealed significant improvements in all domains of critical thinking: interpretation (p = 0.000), analysis (p = 0.000), evaluation (p = 0.000), inference (p = 0.000), and explanation (p = 0.000). The overall mean critical thinking score increased from 15.6 ± 3.5 to 20.5 ± 2.9 (p < 0.001). Senior students (3rd and 4th year) demonstrated greater improvements compared to juniors (p = 0.034), while no significant gender-based differences were observed (p = 0.210). Conclusion: Problem-based learning significantly enhances critical thinking skills among undergraduate nursing students and should be integrated into nursing curricula in Pakistan to promote clinical competence and professional readiness.