Human Patient Simulations: Evaluation of Self-Efficacy and Anxiety in Clinical Skills Performance

Background

An alarming number of undergraduate nursing students have low self-efficacy and high anxiety levels in clinical skills performance despite the use of Human Patient Simulations (HPS) as a teaching-learning strategy in the nursing learning laboratory (Kameg et al., 2009; Shepherd et al., 2007; Shepherd et al., 2010; Omansky, 2010). According to Leigh (2008), National League for Nursing 2006, 2007, Nehring, 2008), the use of simulators as a teaching tool is new to the field of nursing compared to other fields of studies such as the fields of aviation, infantry, and medicine. Although a decade has passed since the beginning of the use of HPS as a teaching tool in nursing, much is still not known about the deficiencies of HPS on undergraduate nursing students' learning (Nehring, 2008, 2010). The literature indicated that self-efficacy and anxiety are barriers to students’ clinical skills performance in all areas of nursing clinical practice (White, 2003; White, 2011). Historically, a few research studies exist on the effects of HPS on self-efficacy, anxiety levels and poor clinical skills performance of the undergraduate nursing students (Laster, 2007a; National League for Nursing, 2010; Nehring & Lashley, 2004; Nehring, 2008; Waxman, 2011). This research study therefore, explored the effect of the use of HPS as a teaching strategy on the self-efficacy and anxiety levels of the third-year undergraduate nursing students enrolled in maternal and child health specialty course.