Effect of high fidelity simulation on clinical decision-making among nursing students

Abstract

It became necessary to integrate alternative teaching methods having excellent results in the nursing curriculum such as high-fidelity human patient simulation. High fidelity simulation improves nursing students’ thinking, and emotional and decision-making capabilities. The pretest – posttest control group design was conducted to examine the effect of high-fidelity simulation (HFS) intervention on clinical decision-making for pediatric nursing students at the Arab American University in Palestine. One hundred fifty participants took part in the present study, where 50% (n = 75) were in each of the intervention and control groups. The intervention group received theory-based learning and high fidelity simulation, while the control group was provided with theory based learning and usual training in the nursing laboratory. Findings showed that after implementing the intervention, a significant change was noticed in means of clinical decision-making between the control and intervention groups. Therefore, high fidelity simulation intervention was effective, thus it could benefit the nursing students by enhancing clinical decision-making. The results support nursing educators and universities especially in developing countries to adopt such an intervention strategy for nursing students.