First-year nursing students' attitudes towards artificial intelligence: Cross-sectional multi-center study

Aim: To assess the attitudes of nursing students toward artificial intelligence. Background: Possible applications of artificial intelligence-powered systems in nursing cover all aspects of nursing care, from patient care to risk management. Although the final acceptance of artificial intelligence in practice will depend on positive 'nurses' attitudes toward artificial intelligence, those attitudes have gained little attention so far.Design: A cross-sectional multicenter study.Methods: The study was performed at nursing schools of four Croatian universities, surveying a total of 336 firstyear nursing students (response rate 69.7%) enrolled in 2021. A validated instrument, the General Attitudes towards Artificial Intelligence Scale, consisting of 20 Likert-type items, was chosen for the study. Where applicable, the items were contextualized for nursing. Four sub-scales were identified based on the outcomes of the factor analysis.Results: The average attitude score was (mean & PLUSMN; standard deviation) 64.5 & PLUSMN; 11.7, out of a maximum of 100, which was significantly higher than the neutral score of 60.0 (p < 0.001). The attitude towards AI did not differ across the universities and was not associated with students' age. Male students scored slightly higher than their female colleagues. Scores on subscales "Benefits of artificial intelligence in nursing", "Willingness to use artificial intelligence in nursing practice", and "Dangers of artificial intelligence" were favorable of artificial intelligencebased solutions. However, scores on the subscale "Practical advantages of artificial intelligence" were somewhat unfavorable.Conclusions: First-year nursing students had slightly positive attitudes towards artificial intelligence in nursing, which should make it easier for the new generations of nurses to embrace and implement artificial intelligence systems. Reservations about artificial intelligence in daily nursing practice indicate that nursing students might benefit from education focused specifically on applications of artificial intelligence in nursing.