Abstract

Challenges encountered during development of scenarios for a management simulation exercise for undergraduate student nurses

Author(s): Colette Lyng, Susan Hourican, Mary McGrath, Daniela Lehwaldt

Scenario development is an essential part of any simulation design, yet the published literature on this topic is limited. A group of School of Nursing staff from Dublin City University in collaboration with clinical colleagues from partner services recently developed, implemented and evaluated a ward based simulation exercise with the primary aim of helping students to consolidate their knowledge and skills in relation to providing care for a group of patients. This required the development of a selection of realistic patient scenarios that would run simultaneously and could be enacted in the Clinical Education Centre in the School of Nursing. The scenarios incorporated many nursing skills required to manage a caseload of patients including communication skills, individual psychomotor skills such as removal of an indwelling urinary catheter and cognitive skills such as problem solving, prioritising care and decision making. This proved to be one of the most challenging aspects of the project. In this paper we will share our experiences and discuss the challenges encountered while developing a bank of scenarios for use in a simulated ward. This will include identification of learning outcomes, choosing and developing appropriate scenarios, identifying required resources, synchronising scenarios and script writing.