Perceived Nursing Students’ Satisfaction and Self-Confidence towards the Elements of Clinical Simulation Design and Educational Practice during the Outbreak of COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

COVID–19 pandemic represents a challenge not only to frontline health professionals, whointroducing nursing services but also to nursing academics in nursing education. Clinicalsimulation is a valuable tool for teaching and learning in nursing education especially in thiscrisis. Aim: The study aimed to identify the perceived nursing students’ satisfaction and selfconfidencetowards the elements of clinical simulation design and educational practice duringthe outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A quantitative descriptive cross-sectionaldesign was utilized. The study was conducted at the nursing department, College of AppliedMedical Sciences affiliated to the University of Hafr Al-Batin. This study involved 118nursing students who were enrolled in different levels of academic years. The questionnaireinvolved three instruments; the Simulation Design Scale, Educational Practices Questionnaire,and Student Satisfaction / Self- Confidence in Learning Scale. Results: The findings revealedthat around half of nursing students had a low level of satisfaction with simulation activityand the highest percent of them had a high level of self-confidence for managing thesimulated situations. Conclusion & Recommendations: The study findings reflected that theuse of simulation in presence of design elements and educational practices' features is atypical solution for clinical nursing education to promote students' satisfaction and selfconfidencein learning. The study recommended incorporating virtual clinical simulation andother adaptive digital learning methods as a teaching strategy in nursing curricula, as well asencouragement the nursing colleges to allocate budget for purchasing equipment and highfidelity patient simulation manikins