Effectiveness of simulated delivery room classes on practical achievement and satisfaction of maternity nursing students

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of simulated delivery room classes on practical achievement and satisfaction of maternity nursing students.

Methods: A randomized controlled trial was carried out at the maternity lab in the faculty of nursing and labor & delivery room of Mansoura university hospital. This study comprised a convenience sample of 92 female maternity nursing students out of 196 assigned to the maternity course during the first semester of the academic year 2014-2015. They were randomly assigned to one of two groups; the simulation group received simulated delivery room classes' one week pre the conventional clinical training and the control group received only the conventional clinical training. Two tools were used for data collection: the 1^st tool was an observational checklist of 20 items that was used to evaluate the students' practical achievement and the 2^nd tool was a 5 item student's satisfaction scale that was used to evaluate the students' satisfaction with the clinical experience.

Results: The students of the simulation group had a highly statistically significant higher scores than the control group (46.5 ± 4.7 versus 36.9 ± 3.6 respectively; 95% CI 11.25, 7.75 & p < .001) for the practical achievement and (21.1 ± 3.8 versus 11.2 ± 3.3 respectively; 95% CI 8.396, 11.331 & p < .001) for the students' satisfaction with the clinical training experience.

Conclusions: These study results pointed out that the simulation classes is an effective training method for enhancing the students’ practical achievement and satisfaction. Thus, providing the maternity students with simulated delivery room classes prior the conventional clinical training is recommended.