The Journal of Medical Education and Development

Introduction: Creativity is an essential component of nursing practice. Failure to encourage nurses into creativity may hinder innovations in nursing practice and science. Thus, it is important to explore methods for developing it in nursing education. This study aimedto compare creativity in undergraduate and graduate nursing students of Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences in 2014.

 Methods: This cross-sectional study was done on the undergraduate (n=172) and master students of critical care nursing (n=42) according to convenience sampling. The Abedi′s Creativity Tool including 60 questions in four sub-scales (fluency, elaboration, originality, and flexibility) was completed by students. Internal consistency for Creativity Test was assured by Cronbach's alpha =0.83.

Result:  The results showed that 64.5% of the students were female (n=91) and 35.5% of them were male (n=50). Creativity mean score was 129.5±13.74 and 134.9±15.1 in undergraduate and master of science students, respectively.  77.3% of students reported their creativity moderate and the rest (22.7%) high. There was not any significant difference between the two groups in total score of the creativity, but there were significant differences in the flexibility subscale in master students (p<0.05).

Conclusion:Since creative thought is simulated interaction with environment, in order to minimizing distance from appropriate level of creativity at universities, it is necessary to create a supportive educational environment. It is suggested that teachers use specific methods such as brain storming, research skills, exploratory learning, creative study method to enhance creativity level of their students.