“Does Simulation Enhance Nursing Student's Knowledge of Skin and Wound Care?”

Purpose: To demonstrate that simulation is an effective teaching and learning method to educate undergraduate nursing students on the complex topic of skin and wound care.

Problem Statement: Simulation is becoming more popular with nurse educators, largely in part due to the requirement for increased patient safety. Nursing is a profession where practical skill is essential and nursing education has been challenged to engage students to learn complex material. The teaching strategy of simulation can support student nurses in acquiring this knowledge. It can provide student nurses with hands-on learning and offer patient-care experience required for the best practice. Nursing programs are preparing future nurses for the complex health care environment and risks of undergraduate nursing students caring for high-risk patients, the use of simulators can provide a safe and effective means of preparing students for practice.

Research Design:  Distribution of a paper and pencil questionnaire following a Skin Assessment simulation module. Prior to the simulation all  nursing students received a 50 minute Skin, Hair and Nails Assessment lecture and an additional 2 hour lecture on Skin Integrity and Wound Care. The questionnaire included 6 questions using the Likert scale and 1 open-ended question.

Results: The research results indicate that the use of simulation for skin and wound care enhances sophomore nursing student’s knowledge of skin and wound assessment skills prior to caring for actual patients in the clinical settings. Student’s confidence of skin and wound assessment was increased with the use of simulation and the student’s overall experience was positive. Simulation offers an innovative approach that compliments theoretical knowledge and helps address the changing complex health care needs, limited clinical sites and faculty shortages. The results of this study support the use of simulation and demonstrated that the students had an increase in confidence and understanding of the skill learned.