Simulation as a Research Tool for Pediatric Emergency Medicine

Simulation-based research (SBR) is the term used to describe research in clinical care, education, or health care systems where simulation is incorporated into the study design. Simulation-based research has increased in prevalence and scope in the past decade, including a growing number of investigations in pediatric emergency medicine (PEM). The conduct of high-quality SBR is faced with a variety of challenges related to study design, sample size, analytic considerations, and the interpretation and/or extrapolation of experimental results to actual clinical care. This article will review the application of SBR to PEM, including a review of these methodological challenges; examples of published SBE studies in PEM will illustrate successful approaches to dealing with such challenges. In addition, future directions and recommendations for optimizing quality of ongoing SBE in PEM will be discussed.