Nursing Students’ Experiences in Clinical Simulation Lab in Pediatric Nursing Course

The use of simulation in nursing education in both undergraduate and postgraduate has been growing so rapidly [1]. There is increasing evidence in the literature that simulation can be an effective means to promote learning in nursing and other healthcare professions. Simulation has been demonstrated to be effective in improving student cognitive skills and critical thinking [2]. By, using simulation, instructors can develop a realistic patient scenario using mannequins as patients in a simulated environment. Students can practice multiple aspects of patient care and can cover all the learning objectives without the risk of making mistakes with real patients [3]. In addition to improving knowledge and performance, simulation has been demonstrated to lead to comfort in procedures, and can be a reliable tool for assessing learners [4]. Furthermore, Study by Chakravarthy B et al. [5] concluded that simulation has resulted in significant improvement in medical student knowledge, management skills, confidence, and satisfaction.


Opinion
The aim of this paper is to share the initial experiences of using clinical simulation with students enrolled in pediatric course and to describe the student nurses' feedback about the clinical simulation lab.
The use of simulation in nursing education in both undergraduate and postgraduate has been growing so rapidly [1]. There is increasing evidence in the literature that simulation can be an effective means to promote learning in nursing and other healthcare professions. Simulation has been demonstrated to be effective in improving student cognitive skills and critical thinking [2]. By, using simulation, instructors can develop a realistic patient scenario using mannequins as patients in a simulated environment. Students can practice multiple aspects of patient care and can cover all the learning objectives without the risk of making mistakes with real patients [3]. In addition to improving knowledge and performance, simulation has been demonstrated to lead to comfort in procedures, and can be a reliable tool for assessing learners [4]. Furthermore, Study by Chakravarthy B et al. [5] concluded that simulation has resulted in significant improvement in medical student knowledge, management skills, confidence, and satisfaction.
Simulation training is a recommended strategy for safe clinical practice, because the real patient setting is hindered by changes in resources, such as shorter length of patient stay, higher patient acuity, nursing staff shortages, and a greater concern and emphasis on the prevention of medical errors [6].
College of Nursing -Jeddah was established in September 2006 and it is located in the Western Region of Saudi Arabia. A simulation task force committee was established Dec. 2013 and still in the process of developing administrative policies and procedure while waiting for a high fidelity simulation manikins.
Our team is acquainted about the simulation, the art and science of recreating a clinical scenario in an artificial setting, and do their best with the available manikins and equipment to create a clinical simulation lab environment that enable our nursing students to provide safe nursing care to children and their families.
First semester, academic year 2013-2014, three sections (total 60 nursing students) were registered for pediatric nursing course and we have two weeks for developing skills and procedures needed to provide care of pediatric patients in addition to two weeks clinical simulation lab. As our students have clinical placement in pediatric medical unit, pediatric surgical unit, pediatric oncology unit and neonatal intensive care unit, the clinical simulation lab includes four different clinical scenarios (one per each clinical placement) every day. The aim of this paper is to share the initial experiences of using clinical simulation with students enrolled in pediatric course and to describe the student nurses' feedback in the clinical simulation lab.
The week after Objective Structures Clinical Exam (OSCE), nursing students were asked to give feedback about their simulation experiences by list the positive and negative aspects from their point of view of clinical simulation lab in addition to their recommendations to improve the clinical simulation lab for their benefits. Furthermore, a 5 point Likert scale was used (strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree and strongly disagree) to identify to what extend the clinical simulation lab enhance their abilities either in clinical hospital training or during OSCE.
Nursing students were asked to give feedback about their simulation experiences by list the positive and negative aspects of clinical simulation. As regards the positive aspects of simulation sessions, they reported that "Simulation sessions provided us with environment similar to that in the hospital", "Simulation sessions helped us to become more organized", "Simulation sessions helped us to be more confident" and "Simulation sessions encourage our critical thinking" as regards the negative aspects of simulation, students reported the following:"Nothing, it was good"; "We are in the sessions for long time standing without sitting"; "It increases

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my anxiety" and recommended to "Increase the simulation days", "Provide chairs for us during simulation sessions" and "Give us more breaks". Furthermore, a 5 Likert scale was used to identify to what extend the clinical simulation lab enhance their abilities either in clinical hospital training or during objective structured clinical examination (OSCE). It was found that the mean students' satisfaction was 4.6±0.49 for enhancing students' skills in the hospital and 4.43±0.81 for enhancing their confidence in the hospital. As regard enhancing their skills and confidence during the OSCE, the mean students' satisfaction was 4.43±0.071 and 4.34±0.098 respectively. The mean of overall satisfaction from simulation sessions was 4.43±0.071 as in Figure 1.