Nursing Student Perceptions of Standardized Patient Use in Health Assessment

•Standardized patients (SPs) provide a more realistic clinical experience, as SPs provide valuable feedback from a patient's perspective.•Although incorporating SPs into physical assessment competency testing can increase nervousness, it requires students to use a higher level of critical thinking.•The use of SPs may address student privacy and cultural sensitivity issues.•As the use of SPs in undergraduate nursing education is in its infancy, more research is needed to determine the effectiveness and cost versus benefit of this approach.

BackgroundPeer physical examinations (PPEs) are often used to teach health assessment (HA) skills in undergraduate nursing education; however, the use of standardized patients (SPs) has been shown to have a greater impact on cognitive, affective, and psychomotor learning.MethodSurvey results from students who completed their HA final head-to-toe assessment evaluation using PPEs versus SPs were compared in this mixed-method descriptive study.ResultsStudents who used SPs indicated their assessment required more critical thinking and less memorization compared with those who used PPEs for their HA final head-to-toe assessment evaluation (p < .05).ConclusionThe use of SPs and case-based scenarios is an innovative teaching modality that can improve undergraduate nursing students' critical thinking and assessment skills.