The effect of high-fidelity simulation technology on the competency of nursing students in managing chemotherapy extravasation in patients with cancer.

Background: Nursing education suffers from a lack of high-quality clinical experiences for students, especially among medical specialty groups such as cancer patients, in Saudi Arabia. A paucity of empirical evidence is supporting simulation in education and the transfer of psychomotor skills to patient care. In particular, although generally recognized as an essential oncology nursing skill, effective strategies for teaching the management of chemotherapy extravasation to students have not been investigated.

Purpose: To investigate the effects of high-fidelity simulation (HFS) technology on the competency of nursing students in the management of chemotherapy extravasation and the transfer of this skill from traditional learning labs to clinical settings.

Methods: A quasi-experimental study comprising a two-group pretest-posttest with repeated measures was used. The intervention was a scenario-based, HFS. Third-year students (n = 68) from a nursing program were randomly allocated to either intervention or control groups. Competency was measured in both groups using the same standardized assessment checklist.

Results: Competency scores were lower in the control group compared to the intervention group at both posttesting times. These results, however, were not statistically significant. There was no statistically significant difference between the groups regarding skill transfer.

Conclusions: Nursing faculty can use either HFS or traditional learning methods to effectively teach students how to manage chemotherapy extravasation and transfer this skill to clinical settings.