The effectiveness of virtual simulation in improving knowledge, skill, affective outcomes, and satisfaction among nursing students during infectious disease nursing: A single-group pretest-posttest design.

BACKGROUND

Infectious disease nursing is fraught with numerous challenges when it comes to conducting practical teaching, as it involves the characteristic of the "three highs" and the "four difficulties" aspect, which poses a limitation to a certain extent on acquisition of infectious disease knowledge and the development of professional ability among nursing students. Virtual simulation has demonstrated its effectiveness as a valuable educational tool in nursing. However, there is a dearth of evidence supporting its utilization in the context of disease nursing practice education.

OBJECTIVE

To develop a virtual simulation education system and evaluate its effectiveness in improving nursing students' knowledge, skills, affective outcomes, and satisfaction, thereby enhancing their clinical decision-making capabilities in complex clinical scenarios.

DESIGN

A single-group pre- and post-test design was used.

SETTING

Nursing students at a medical university in China were invited to participate in a virtual simulation program named Integrated Virtual Simulation Training Program.

PARTICIPANTS

A total of 538 third year nursing students enrolled the course participated in the study.

METHODS

Participants underwent a 1-h learning session using the virtual clinical simulation education system. Pre-test and post-test evaluations were conducted to assess the nursing students' knowledge by theoretical test, skill by the Virtual Simulation Actual Combat modulet, as well as affective outcomes including infectious disease specific health literacy, self-efficacy, self-directed learning ability, and critical thinking ability using four questionnaires. Additional, satisfaction questionnaire made by Questionnaire Star was administered after the Virtual Simulation System to gain insight into students' subjective perceptions and feedback on the virtual clinical simulation.

RESULTS

Findings showed a significant improvement in the nursing students' post-test knowledge (z = - 2.55, p = 0.011), the skill performance was 90.34 (median: 94, s.d.: 10.65) within mean 95.78% learning progress, indicating an overall excellent performance level. There were also notable enhancements in the nursing students' overall score of affective outcomes post-test (p < 0.05). Results from the satisfaction questionnaire demonstrated that students positively evaluated the usefulness and usability of the virtual clinical simulation.

CONCLUSIONS

This study supports virtual simulation as an effective learning tool for the three-year pre-registration nursing students. Simulation improves nursing students' both knowledge, skill, and affective outcomes during the Infectious Disease Nursing about viral hepatitis. Virtual simulation of rare events should be a key component of undergraduate nurse education, to prepare students to manage complex situations as practicing nurses.