In-situ simulation for nursing students' professional competence development in postanesthesia care: A quasi-experimental study.

Aim: To evaluate the differences in professional competence development between nursing students in routine clinical practice and those who experienced four additional in-situ simulations.

Background: The amount of clinical practice time available to nursing students is limited. Occasionally, clinical settings do not provide all of the content that nursing students are expected to acquire. In high-risk clinical scenarios, such as the postanesthesia care unit, clinical practice may not provide sufficient context for students to develop the professional competence.

Design: This was a non-blinded, non-randomized, quasi-experimental study. The study was conducted in the postanesthesia care unit of a tertiary hospital in China between April 2021 and December 2022. Nursing students' self-assessed professional competence development and faculty-assessed clinical judgment were used as indicators.

Methods: A total of 30 final year undergraduate nursing students were divided into two groups according to the time they arrived at the unit for their clinical practice. Nursing students in the control group followed the routine teaching protocol of the unit. Students in the simulation group received four additional in-situ simulations during the second and third weeks of their practice in addition to the routine program. Nursing students self-assessed their postanesthesia care unit professional competence at the end of the first and fourth weeks. At the end of the fourth week, the nursing students were evaluated on their clinical judgment.

Results: Nursing students in both groups scored higher on the professional competence at the end of the fourth week than at the end of the first week and there was a trend of higher competence improvement in the simulation group than in the control group. For clinical judgment, nursing students in the simulation group scored higher than the control group.

Conclusions: In-situ simulation contributes to the development of professional competence and clinical judgment of nursing students during their clinical practice in the postanesthesia care unit.