Using a simulation-based approach to promote structured and interactive nursing clinical handover: a pre- and post-evaluation pilot study in bilingual Hong Kong

Effective clinical nursing handover involves the transfer of responsibility and accountability for patient care between nurses, leading to better patient safety and continuity of care. Nurses in bilingual contexts, such as Hong Kong – where nurses are trained in English but communicate in Cantonese – may find it challenging to deliver a safe clinical handover. This article reports a pilot study in which a simulation-based approach is being developed to enhance nursing handover with structured and interactive interactions, using handover protocols such as ISBAR (introduction, situation, background, assessment, recommendation and readback) and CARE-team (connect, ask, respond, empathise) protocols in a bilingual context. The study has a pre‐ and post-evaluation design involving a questionnaire survey before and after a 4‐hour workshop. Fourteen selected bilingual nurses in Hong Kong were trained according to the ISBAR and CARE-team protocols, and their perceptions of complete and structured handovers were evaluated before and after training using the questionnaire. The nurses reported that they were more self-confident in their handover experiences, with a deeper understanding of ISBAR and CARE-team protocols after the simulation-based training intervention, leading to better (i.e., more structured and interactive) clinical handover between nurses. Overall, the staff perceived their handover communication to have improved using simulation-based training. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12912-023-01189-w.