Building Student Confidence through Interprofessional Simulation

Davenport, Deborah

Monday, 18 November 2013

Deborah Davenport, PhD, RN, CNE
Helen Reyes, MSN, EdD, CNE
Department of Nursing, West Texas A&M University, Canyon, TX

Learning Objective 1: Identify ways high fidelity interprofessional simulation can improve student confidence.

Learning Objective 2: Discuss the use of high fidelity interprofessional simulation in improving collaboration among an interdisciplinary healthcare team.

New nurses often report difficulty in learning to work collaboratively with physicians and other healthcare providers, because of a lack of opportunity in their basic nursing education programs to learn and practice these skills. Recent educational recommendations encourage interprofessional collaborative and collegial educational experiences to provide seamless practice in improving patient outcomes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate health care professional students’ confidence in working in emergency situations as well as to evaluate their confidence in working with an interprofessional team through a simulated experience, using high fidelity human patient simulators. IRB approval was granted for the study.

Participants (N=26), who included nursing students from baccalaureate, associate, and LVN programs, respiratory care students, emergency services students, medical students, and pharmacy students, completed the three data collections tools (consisting of visual analog scales) before and after the simulated experience. Participants marked these tools denoting their confidence in managing a patient experiencing an emergency situation, their confidence in communicating essential information to physicians, and their confidence in communicating essential information to other interprofessional health care team members. Data were analyzed using paired t tests. Increase in overall confidence from the experience was statistically significant (t -3.040, p=.005); and confidence significantly increased in 2 of the 3 subscales, managing an emergency situation (t -4.093, p=.000) and communicating with other interprofessional health care team members (t -2.328, p=.02). Confidence in communicating essential information to physicians was not statistically significant, although post simulation confidence was higher than pre-simulation confidence (t -1.760, p=.09).

These findings suggest that use of interprofessional simulation assists students in becoming more confident in working in interprofessional teams. Consequently, interprofessional simulations should be included in all types of nursing programs’ learning activities. Continued research is needed using strategies to increase confidence in the health care team when communicating with physicians.

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