Effects of communication on the performance of nursing students during the simulation of an emergency situation

Contextual determinants impacting final year nursing students' emergency team communication during deteriorating patient simulations: A grounded theory study

BACKGROUND

Ability to focus on development of students' team communication and non-technical skills may be reduced in content saturated nursing curricula. Even when communication and simulation-based education is provided, students' utilisation of non-technical skills remains challenging. Although simulation is a recognised means to learn communication skills, little is known about nursing students' team communication in simulated settings.

OBJECTIVE

To understand the process by which final year undergraduate nursing students communicate in simulated team emergencies.

DESIGN

Using constructivist grounded theory, data was collected using semi-structured interviews and student observations and analysed using constant comparative analysis.

SETTING

Simulation laboratories in one university nursing school in Australia.

PARTICIPANTS

21 final year nursing students in seven teams.

METHODS

Data were gathered from interviews and video observations of final year nursing students during simulated team emergencies.

RESULTS

Interview data and observations of video-recordings revealed contextual determinants that influence communication within teams: the simulation context, the student context and the team context. Team member characteristics, such as cultural and linguistic background, life experiences, gender and age, the ability to shift from leadership to followership as well as environmental factors such as mask wearing and simulation fidelity, contributed to uncertainty in communicating that nursing team effectiveness.

CONCLUSIONS

Improvement of contextual conditions necessitates implementation of supportive strategies. These include development of educational initiatives, and further research in experiential learning as a modality for learners to experience team communication. Further, simulation context, student context and team context are important considerations. Meeting clinical communication learning needs of students allows better preparation to care for deteriorating patients as graduates.

Global Trends and Hot-Spots in Research on Virtual Simulation in Nursing: A Bibliometric Analysis From 1999 to 2021

Background

Virtual simulation has been widely used in nursing education and nursing training. This study aims to characterize the publications in terms of countries, institutions, journals, authors, collaboration relationships, and analyze the trends of virtual simulation in nursing research.

Methods

Publications regarding virtual simulation in nursing were retrieved from Web of Science core collection. Microsoft Excel 2010, VOSviewer were used to characterize the contributions of the authors, journals, institutions, and countries. The trends, hot-spots and knowledge network were analyzed by Citespace and VOSviewer.

Results

We identified 677 papers between 1999 and 2021. The number of publications grew slowly until 2019, after that, it got a sharp increase in 2020 and 2021. The USA, Canada and Australia were three key contributors to this field. Centennial College and University of San Paulo, University of Ottawa and Ryerson University were top major institutions with a larger number of publications. Verkuyl M was the most productive and highest cited author. Clinical Simulation in Nursing, Nurse Education Today, Journal of Nursing Education were the three productive journals. The foundational themes of virtual simulation research in nursing are “virtual learning during COVID-19, clinical nursing care, education in nurse practitioners, education technology”.

Conclusion

Virtual simulation in nursing field has attracted considerable attention during COVID-19 pandemic. The research hotspot is gradually shifting from clinical nursing care to studies of nursing education using different virtual simulation technologies

The relationship between professional communication competences and nursing performance of critical care nurses in South Korea

BACKGROUND

Ineffective communication of critical care nurses can lead to higher levels of burnout and negatively affect quality of patient care and patient outcomes such as higher mortality.

AIM

The purpose of this study is to describe the relationship between professional communication competences and nursing performance of critical care nurses in South Korea.

METHOD

This cross-sectional study collected data on 197 intensive care unit staff nurses in 3 tertiary academic medical centres in South Korea from July to November 2014.

RESULTS

In the hierarchical regression analysis, the professional communication competences were the only significant predictors of nursing performance after adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics. In addition, the greater professional communication competences of nurses were associated with being older and having a higher education level, more years of overall clinical and intensive care unit experience, and a higher monthly salary.

CONCLUSION

Our findings indicate that communication skills-related training should be included in the practical education to improve nursing performance for the quality of intensive care. Further research is needed to identify the comprehensive factors on professional communication competences of nurses in intensive care units.

Cognitive control level of action for analyzing verbal reports in educative clinical simulation situations

BACKGROUND

Several methods and theoretical frameworks have been proposed for efficient debriefing after clinical simulation sessions. In these studies, however, the cognitive processes underlying the debriefing stage are not directly addressed. Cognitive control constitutes a conceptual link between behavior and reflection on behavior to apprehend debriefing cognitively.

OBJECTIVES

Our goal was to analyze cognitive control from verbal reports using the Skill-Rule-Knowledge model. This model considers different cognitive control levels from skill-based to rule-based and knowledge-based control.

DESIGN

An experiment was conducted with teams of nursing students who were confronted with emergency scenarios during high-fidelity simulation sessions.

SETTINGS

Participants' descriptions of their actions were asked in the course of the simulation scenarios or during the debriefing stage.

PARTICIPANTS

52 nursing students working in 26 pairs participated in this study.

METHODS

Participants were divided into two groups: an "in situ" group in which they had to describe their actions at different moments of a deteriorating patient scenario, and a "debriefing" group, in which, at the same moments, they had to describe their actions displayed on a video recording. In addition to a cognitive analysis, the teams' clinical performance was measured.

RESULTS

The cognitive control level in the debriefing group was generally higher than in the in situ group. Good team performance was associated with a high level of cognitive control after a patient's significant state deterioration.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings are in conformity with the "Skill-Rule-Knowledge" model. The debriefing stage allows a deeper reflection on action compared with the in situ condition. If an abnormal event occurs as an adverse event, then participants' mental processes tend to migrate towards knowledge-based control. This migration particularly concerns students with the best clinical performance. Thus, this cognitive framework can help to strengthen the analysis of verbal reports.