The effect of role assignment in high fidelity patient simulation on nursing students: An experimental research study.

Background: Previous studies have evaluated the effectiveness of high fidelity patient simulators (HFPS) on nursing training; however, a gap exists on the effects of role assignment on critical thinking, self-efficacy, and situation awareness skills in team-based simulation scenarios.

Objectives: This study aims to determine if role assignment and the involvement level related to the roles yields significant effects and differences in critical thinking, situation awareness and self-efficacy scores in team-based high-fidelity simulation scenarios.

Design: A single factorial design with five levels and random assignment was utilized.

Setting: A public university-sponsored simulation center in the United States of America.

Participants: A convenience sample of 69 junior-level baccalaureate nursing students was recruited for participation.

Methods: Participants were randomly assigned one of five possible roles and completed pre-simulation critical thinking and self-efficacy assessments prior to the simulation beginning. Playing within their assigned roles, participants experienced post-partum hemorrhaging scenario using an HFPS. After completing the simulation, participants completed a situation awareness assessment and a post-simulation critical thinking and self-efficacy assessment.

Results: Role assignment was found to have a statistically significant effect on critical thinking skills and a statistically significant difference in various areas of self-efficacy was also noted. However, no statistical significance in situation awareness abilities was found.

Conclusions: Results support the notion that certain roles required the participant to be more involved with the simulation scenario, which may have yielded higher critical thinking and self-efficacy scores than roles that required a lesser level of involvement.