Educational intervention to improve intravenous cannulation skills in paediatric nurses using low-fidelity simulation: Indian experience

INTRODUCTION: Inserting, monitoring and maintaining intravenous access are essential components of nursing. We evaluated simulation training on a manikin to improve cannulation skills. METHODS: Nursing staff managing paediatric patients were asked to cannulate NITA Newborn-1800 manikin before and after appropriate training. Skills were assessed by a single assessor using an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) checklist. Four steps were identified as critical. A score of 8/10 (80%) was considered satisfactory. Knowledge was assessed by 10 questions. A training module consisting of theoretical aspects, PowerPoint presentations, videos and hands on training over a manikin was conducted. Post-training assessment was done 1 week later. RESULTS: Seventy-five (80.6%) nurses who completed preassessments and postassessments were assessed for paired comparisons of knowledge and skill. The majority of the nurses were females, had contractual appointment, were in their early career phase and from the paediatric wards. The mean (SD) post-training knowledge score was greater vis-a-vis pretraining score (7.52 (1.58) vs 5.32 (1.57), P<0.001). A similar result was observed for total OSCE scores (9.22 (0.66) vs 7.91 (1.11), P<0.001). Significantly higher proportion of participants exhibited intravenous cannulation satisfactorily after the training vis-a-vis pretraining assessment (69 (92%) vs 36 (48%), P<0.001). CONCLUSION: Training using manikin showed improvement in post-training score of intravenous cannulation skill of paediatric nurses; however, this finding needs further confirmation by a randomised control trial, as our study does not have a control group.