Nursing Students’ Satisfaction and Self-Confidence Levels After Their Simulation Experience

BACKGROUND: Nursing students should be well prepared before going to clinical setting as they provide direct care to patient. Simulation gives the learners the opportunity to be active learners who practice, train, and give a reflection on a specific experience. OBJECTIVE: To obtain an understanding of the human patient simulation experience and nursing students’ perceptions of satisfaction and self-confidence. METHOD: Cross-sectional, descriptive design was undertaken. Using purposive sampling, 273 nursing students were enrolled in basic adult nursing courses at levels four and five at female nursing college at King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A questionnaire was used to measure the demographic characteristics, simulation design characteristics, and simulation educational practice context. Student Satisfaction and Self-confidence in Learning Scale was used to measure students’ satisfaction and self-confidence. Bivariate analyses were utilized where needed and multiple linear regression analysis was performed to find the relationship between variables. RESULTS: The current study revealed overall, nursing students were satisfied and self-confident after their human patient simulation experience. A relationship was observed between demographic characteristics, simulation design characteristics, and simulation educational practice context with students’ satisfaction and self-confidence. CONCLUSION: Simulation is an effective teaching strategy that prepares nursing students for real clinical practice. Findings provided policymakers with information on nursing students’ current levels of satisfaction and self-confidence that can lead to developing future policies.