Effectiveness of High-Fidelity Patient Simulation in Teaching Clinical Reasoning Skills

• Lack of evidence to support high-fidelity patient simulation use is better than traditional methods for teaching clinical reasoning.
• The use of high-fidelity patient simulation is at least as effective as other teaching modalities.
• The level of fidelity of patient simulators does not influence student learning outcomes.

BackgroundHigh-fidelity patient simulation (HFPS) has been increasingly used in nursing education more than the last two decades. Yet, minimal studies have been done to investigate its effectiveness in teaching clinical reasoning skills to undergraduate nursing students.MethodThis study evaluated the effectiveness of using HFPS in teaching clinical reasoning skills to undergraduate nursing students and a comparison with other teaching methods. Keyword searches were conducted in six databases for randomized and quasi-randomized controlled studies. Two independent reviewers assessed the eligibility and methodological quality of the studies and performed data extraction.ResultsOf the 11 studies included in this review, 7 investigated the effectiveness of using HFPS on knowledge acquisition, 4 examined skill performance and 2 investigated critical thinking. The results indicated a lack of statistically significant difference in the learning outcomes from HFPS versus traditional modalities and low-fidelity simulation.ConclusionThis systematic review reveals a lack of support for the hypothesis that the use of HFPS is more effective than other teaching methods in teaching clinical reasoning skills to undergraduate nursing students.