Effects of a Simulation-based education on Cardiopulmonary Emergency Care Knowledge, Critical Thinking and Problem solving ability in Nursing Students

The purpose of this study was to identify the effects of simulation-based education regarding care in a cardio-pulmonary emergency care as related to knowledge, critical thinking, and problem solving ability in nursing students. The study was conducted with a nonequivalent control group pre-posttest design. Seventy four participants were assigned to either the experimental group(34) or control group(40). The simulation-based cardio-pulmonary emergency care education included lecture, team-based practice, and debriefing, and it was implemented with the experimental group for a week from September 1 to December 11, 2015. Data were analyzed using chi-square, t-test and ANCOVA by using SPSS 21.0 program. The experimental group who had the simulation-based education showed significantly higher knowledge(F=24.930, p<.001), and critical thinking(F=5.951, p<.05) for cardio-pulmonary emergency care compared with the control group who had traditional education. However, there were no significant differences in problem solving ability(F=3.327, p>.072). The results indicate that a simulation-based education is an effective teaching method to improve knowledge and critical thinking in nursing students learning cardio-pulmonary emergency care. Further study is needed to identify the effect of a simulation-based team positive education program of nursing students.