Effectiveness of high-fidelity simulation in nursing education for end-of-life care: A quasi-experimental design

Abstract

Background: Providing end of life (EOL) care is a component of palliative care but dealing with dying patients and their family members is stressful for the healthcare providers. To prepare them for providing EOL care, the high-fidelity simulation could be used as a pedagogy in which real-life scenarios are used on the computerized manikins mimicking the real patients. Aims: The aim of this study was to measure the effectiveness of high-fidelity simulation to teach EOL care in the palliative nursing course in the undergraduate nursing education program at the School of Nursing and Midwifery at Aga Khan University which is private university in Karachi, Pakistan. Methods: This study was approved by the ethics review committee of Aga Khan University. It was hypothesized that exposure to high-fidelity simulation will lead to an increased positive attitude in participants towards the care of dying. A quasi-experimental design was used. In line with the design, there was no control group. The same group of students ( n = 42) were assessed through Frommelt Attitudes Toward Care of the Dying (FATCOD) Part B assessment tool. Permission for using this tool was obtained from Dr. Katherine Frommelt, the author of this tool. Research participants filled this tool before and after the intervention, i.e., providing EOL care to a patient in a high-fidelity simulation lab. Results: Out of 30-FATCOD items, significant attitude change was detected on 11-items of which 8 were positively worded statements and 3 were negatively worded statements. As per the hypothesis, it was expected for the positively worded statements that the mean score for the posttest would be significantly greater than the pretest mean score (pretest score < posttest score). The hypothesis was proved for items 1, 4, 10, 18, 22, 25, 27, and 30 as their t -value was significant at 0.05 alpha value (one-tailed). For the negatively worded statements, it was expected that the mean score for the posttest would be significantly lower than the pretest (pretest score > posttest score). The hypothesis was proved for items 5, 6, and 11 as their t -value was significant at 0.05 alpha value (one-tailed). Conclusion: In this research teaching, EOL care through high-fidelity simulation had improved the attitudes of students toward providing care. This pedagogy also provided the participants with a learning opportunity to deal with their own emotions. These findings provide a way forward for teaching EOL and other complex skills of clinical practice.

The Effect of Simulation on Nursing Student Perceptions of Readiness to Provide End-of-Life Care

“…This simulation forced them to develop confidence in addressing caregiver concerns, in addition to patient concerns, by being more cognizant of these. This same phenomenon was also found among participants in a study where participants also stated they were more likely to provide care to family members after simulation 22 and where participants demonstrated significantly improved psychological care skills post simulation. 23 Communication with caregivers created an emotional response, and participants reflected that this "affected" them, in some cases even more than communicating with the patient.…”

Examining the effectiveness of the case study method to access attitudes toward palliative care among healthcare university students

“…Some studies have reported similar results using FATCOD [21] and FATCOD-B [11,22,23]. However, these studies mostly used mixed methods: a speci c educational program [10], an online multimedia training program [21,22], and simulation [21,23].…”

“…Therefore, further learning opportunities may be needed to effect changes in attitudes toward dying patients. In addition, the de nitions and correspondence of subscales in the factor analysis in translating the FATCOD-B are different in the palliative/EOL studies, and most studies did not conduct further subscale analysis [21,23,27,28]. Although the Japanese version of Nakai et al's [13] factor analysis indicated three factors, "attitudes toward death" is a single item.…”

Embedding Nursing Ethics Within Teaching Strategies in Nurse Residency Programs

“…In simulated learning, the learner participates in a scenario as if the situation were occurring, thereby allowing the learner to react naturally. A consensus is well documented of the benefits of simulation as a teaching strategy as one that enhances clinical skills and clinical judgment (Bowen-Withington et al, 2020; Rattani et al, 2020; Sedgwick et al, 2021). In a study evaluating the impact of three different approaches to ethics education, Gallagher et al (2017) noted that an immersive live simulation experience increased ethical sensitivity and ethical action.…”