The impact of design elements on undergraduate nursing students’ educational outcomes in simulation education: protocol for a systematic review

BACKGROUND: Although simulation-based education (SBE) has become increasingly popular as a mode of teaching in undergraduate nursing courses, its effect on associated student learning outcomes remains ambiguous. Educational outcomes are influenced by SBE quality that is governed by technology, training, resources and SBE design elements. This paper reports the protocol for a systematic review to identify, appraise and synthesise the best available evidence regarding the impact of SBE on undergraduate nurses’ learning outcomes. METHODS: Databases to be searched from 1 January 1990 include the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), the Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE), American Psychological Association (APA) PsycInfo and the Education Resources Information Centre (ERIC) via the EBSCO host platform. The Excerpta Medica database (EMBASE) will be searched via the OVID platform. We will review the reference lists of relevant articles for additional citations. A combination of search terms including ‘nursing students’, ‘simulation training, ‘patient simulation’ and ‘immersive simulation’ with common Boolean operators will be used. Specific search terms will be combined with either MeSH or Emtree terms and appropriate permutations for each database. Search findings will be imported into the reference management software (Endnote© Version.X9) then uploaded into Covidence where two reviewers will independently screen the titles, abstracts and retrieved full text. A third reviewer will be available to resolve conflicts and moderate consensus discussions. Quantitative primary research studies evaluating the effect of SBE on undergraduate nursing students’ educational outcomes will be included. The Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT) will be used for the quality assessment of the core criteria, in addition to the Cochrane RoB 2 and ROBINS-I to assess the risk of bias for randomised and non-randomised studies, respectively. Primary outcomes are any measure of knowledge, skills or attitude. DISCUSSION: SBE has been widely adopted by healthcare disciplines in tertiary teaching settings. This systematic review will reveal (i) the effect of SBE on learning outcomes, (ii) SBE element variability and (iii) interplay between SBE elements and learning outcome. Findings will specify SBE design elements to inform the design and implementation of future strategies for simulation-based undergraduate nursing education. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: PROSPERO CRD42021244530 SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13643-022-01926-3.