Background: Patients’ health needs require detailed knowledge of diseases and the
associated pathophysiology to understand and manage their complex care. Nurses rely
on concepts from anatomy, physiology, microbiology, and pathophysiology to ground
their practice. While knowledge of disease processes is a critical requirements for
competent practice nursing, students often struggle with learning and applying
pathophysiology concepts to clinical practice.
Method: A novel teaching innovation known as “Visual Narrative Illustrations” (VNI)
was piloted in a pathophysiology course. Students (n=75), participated in two phases of
exploratory study that analyzed the impact of VNI on students’ understanding of
pathophysiology concepts and assessed whether VNI is an effective teaching method.
Results: Students taught using the VNI strategy performed significantly better on the
post-test than students taught using a traditional lecture format.
Conclusion: VNI assist students in learning complex concepts through the use of
humor and visual images and facilitate their understanding of pathophysiology
processes.
