Interprofessional simulation-based learning used to prepare perioperative nursing students for acute situations

Abstract

Background: Perioperative nursing focuses on care for patients with life-threatening crisis, illness or injury undergoing planned or acute surgery, treatment and/or examination. Performing care requires advanced knowledge and skills to ensure safe outcomes for surgical patients. Perioperative nurses work in interprofessional surgical teams and must develop team skills, such as communication and interprofessional collaboration, as teamwork is an essential component of patient safety. Therefore, perioperative nurses need a distinct form of higher education that builds a close relationship between higher education, science and the profession’s occupational field. Interprofessional simulation-based learning is a pedagogical approach that integrates learning as a task performance, communication technique and collaboration. It involves higher-level learning, such as analysis and problem-solving in problematic scenarios or care settings. Although interprofessional simulation-based learning is an often-used pedagogical approach in nursing programmes, it still seems under-researched and under-theorised, especially in educating perioperative nurses. Therefore, there appears to be a need for explorative research on arranging interprofessional simulation-based learning to facilitate perioperative nursing students’ learning, create good learning processes and obtain attended learning outcomes. Furthermore, there is a need for more in-depth knowledge about the learning processes in interprofessional simulation-based learning. There also seems to be scarce knowledge concerning students’ transfer of professional competence to clinical practice and how interprofessional simulation-based learning influences future practice. Aim: The overarching aim of this PhD thesis is to gain knowledge and insight into perioperative nursing students’ learning and development of professional competence using interprofessional simulation-based learning as a pedagogical approach. Conclusion: Interprofessional simulation-based learning is an essential pedagogical approach in perioperative nursing education, as it develops professional competence and self-efficacy in meeting acute clinical situations. It is vital to use effective pedagogical approaches to build competencies that are transferable to clinical practice and to improve perioperative nurses’ performance as recent graduates. Therefore, it is crucial to implement interprofessional simulation-based learning in perioperative nursing education.