TITLE:
The Changes of Nursing Students’ Assessment Skills at a Simulated Setting: A Quasi Experimental Study
AUTHORS:
Yok Man Cymon Chan, Haobin Yuan
KEYWORDS:
Assessment; Baccalaureate; Nursing Student; Simulation
JOURNAL NAME:
Creative Education,
Vol.5 No.3,
February
15,
2014
ABSTRACT: Background: Structured and comprehensive assessment is critical to identify physical and psychological problems and
concerns experienced by patients. Simulation can be used for training students’
health as- sessment skills as
well as communication skills. Objectives: The purposes of this study were to determine how students’ health assessment
skills changed in a simulated setting. Method: A quasi experimental study with one
group repeated-measures design
was conducted with a purposive sampling of 85 bacca- laureate nursing students at one nursing
school in Macao. Two qualified tutors evaluated students’ health assessment
skills in terms of introduction and patient identification, symptom assessment,
physical ex- amination, patient
education, history inquire and communication using the same criteria in each
simula- tion session. Results: The overall score of students’
health assessment skills increased from the first ses- sion to the last session. Second-year students achieved
higher overall scores of assessment skills than third-year students in some
simulated scenarios significantly even though they had less clinical practice
experience. Conclusions: Simulation
using a human patient simulator
helped students to transform knowledge and skills to assess patient condition.
Tutors should promote students’ intrinsic motivation for learning, develop
their potential and encourage them to keep their efforts in learning.