Professional Development for Simulation Education

Responding to patient deterioration from simulation to practice: A narrative study of undergraduate nursing students

OBJECTIVE

This study explores the impact of simulation-based training on nursing students' readiness to respond to patient deterioration in clinical practice.

BACKGROUND

With limited in-hospital training opportunities, nursing educators seek alternative strategies to teach clinical skills. Simulation-based training offers a controlled environment for skill development and refinement.

DESIGN

A narrative research design was used to examine the experiences of senior undergraduate nursing students (n = 12) at a private university in the Western United States.

METHODS

Data were collected through semi-structured interviews conducted via Zoom.

RESULTS

The study identified three key themes: the application of simulation experiences to real-world settings, the aspects of simulation training valued by students and the role of simulation in emotional regulation and coping. The findings highlight the importance of simulation training in preparing nursing students for clinical emergencies.

CONCLUSIONS

Simulation training enhances clinical judgment and emotional resilience in nursing students, equipping them to handle emergent patient care. Integrating simulation into nursing curricula prepares students for clinical roles and nurse educators can enhance this by creating realistic clinical challenges in simulations.

Undergraduate nursing students' experiences of practicing caring behaviours with standardised patients

RATIONALE

Undergraduate nursing students' learning opportunities to practice caring behaviours to assure compassionate and competent nursing practice with standardised patients are few. Earlier studies primarily focused on practicing communication skills in relation to mental health or developing psychomotor skills while caring for a patient with a specific diagnosis.

AIM

The study aim was to describe undergraduate nursing students' experiences of practicing caring behaviours with a standardised patient.

METHOD

A sample of forty-eight undergraduate nursing students in semester four at a school of nursing in southern Sweden, enrolled in a full-time, 5-week, on-campus elective caring behaviour course, were at the first and last week individually video-recorded during two caring behaviour simulations encountering a standardised patient. After observing each of their video-recordings, students completed written reflections focusing on their own compassionate and competent verbal and nonverbal caring behaviour. In total, 96 individual written reflections were analysed using qualitative content analysis to describe the experience.

RESULTS

One main theme emerged: The challenge of being mindfully present in patient encounters. Four themes further described the experience: A challenging but realistic learning experience, learning the impact of nonverbal behaviour, recognising the complexity of verbal behaviour, and learning to be with the patient instead of only doing for the patient.

CONCLUSION

When caring is intertwined with visible and realistic nursing practice in simulations using standardised patients it facilitates undergraduate nursing students learning compassionate and competent caring behaviour. The learning experience opened the students' eyes to the impact of practicing caring, recognising that being with is not the same as doing for the patient, and thus, how challenging it is to be mindfully present in patient encounters. Designing caring behaviour simulations with standardised patients is a feasible and efficacious educational learning didactic to facilitate students' learning caring behaviour and enhancing patients' experiences.

An application of the caritative caring approach – nursing students’ experiences of practising caring and uncaring encounters by simulation at a clinical training centre

Purpose

Nurses’ lack of competence to be caring affects patients’ health and patients describe a desire for more individual and compassionate care. Nursing education tends, however, to focus less on the caring approach in nursing practice and more on developing knowledge in psychomotor skills. The aim of this study was to describe nursing students’ experiences of simulating caring and uncaring encounters founded on the caritative perspective at a Clinical Training Centre (CTC).

Method

A qualitative, inductive approach using a qualitative latent content analysis. Written reflections of 49 students were analysed.

Findings

By intertwining reflection with acting and observation, the students experienced that they achieved an open mind and gained an understanding of how important it was to treat the patient based on a caring approach. To act, first uncaring and thereafter caring, gave them an awakening. The students were touched and an overwhelming feeling of suddenly understanding human uniqueness and vulnerability appeared.

Conclusions

To simulate caritative caring and uncaring encounters at the CTC enhanced students’ knowledge and understanding about caring and strengthened their prerequisites to acquire a caritative ontological basic view and attitude which in the long run may lead to an increased feeling of patient well-being in the encounter.