Impact of palliative care simulation on nursing students’ learning outcomes and reported use in hospital placement

Abstract

Aim: Nursing students report emotional distress and feelings of inadequacy to the complexity of palliative care. This study aimed to examine nursing students’ attainment of learning outcomes in palliative care through simulation and hospital placement. Design: A longitudinal, intervention study. Methods: Fifty-five second-year bachelor nursing students participated. Three waves of assessments were performed: (1) pretest; (2) postsimulation test and (3) postplacement test after the completion of the placement. Non-parametric Wilcoxon's signed-rank test for paired samples was used to test for differences between assessments of knowledge, skills and competence before and after simulation, and between postsimulation and post hospital placement. Results: The results showed positive differences between pre- and postsimulation, indicating that learning outcomes were attained through simulation. However, negative differences between the postplacement test and postsimulation test scores indicated that the participants had practiced learning outcome from the simulation to a small degree during placement.