Designing and implementing full immersion simulation as a research tool

Simulation is a valuable research tool used to evaluate the clinical performance of devices, people and systems. The simulated setting may address concerns unique to complex clinical environments such as the Emergency Department, which make the conduct of research challenging. There is limited evidence available to inform the development of simulated clinical scenarios for the purpose of evaluating practice in research studies, with the majority of literature focused on designing simulated clinical scenarios for education and training. Distinct differences exist in scenario design when implemented in education compared with use in clinical research studies. Simulated scenarios used to assess practice in clinical research must not comprise of any purposeful or planned teaching and be developed with a high degree of validity and reliability. A new scenario design template was devised to develop two standardised simulated clinical scenarios for the evaluation of a new assessment framework for emergency nurses. The scenario development and validation processes undertaken are described and provide an evidence-informed guide to scenario development for future clinical research studies.