The effectiveness of a simulated scenario to teach nursing students how to perform a bed bath: A randomized clinical trial.

Background: Simulation allows students to develop several skills during a bed bath that are difficult to teach only in traditional classroom lectures, such as problem-solving, student interactions with the simulator (patient), reasoning in clinical evaluations, evaluation of responses to interventions, teamwork, communication, security and privacy.

Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a simulated bed bath scenario on improving cognitive knowledge, practical performance and satisfaction among nursing students.

Design: Randomized controlled clinical trial.

Setting: Nursing students that were in the fifth period from two educational institutions in Brazil.

Participants: Nursing students (n=58).

Method: The data were collected using the assessments of cognitive knowledge, practical performance and satisfaction were made through a written test about bed baths, an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) and a satisfaction questionnaire.

Results: We identified that the acquisition and assimilation of cognitive knowledge was significantly higher in the simulation group (p=0.001). The performance was similar in both groups regardless of the teaching strategy (p=0.435). At follow-up, the simulation group had significantly more satisfaction with the teaching method than the control group (p=0.007).

Conclusion: The teaching strategy based on a simulated scenario of a bed bath proved to be effective for the acquisition of cognitive knowledge regarding bed baths in clinical practice and improved student satisfaction with the teaching process.