Psychological Safety in Nursing Simulation

Abstract

Background: Although nursing students enjoy and learn from simulation practice, some experience negative feelings that may hamper their learning outcomes. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to understand nursing students' perceptions of psychological safety in simulation practice to provide a foundation for a safe and effective simulation learning environment. Methods: A convenient sample of 15 undergraduate nursing students was included in this study. Focus group interviews and inductive content analysis were used for this study. Results: Four themes extracted from the study included feeling unready, anxious about having students'mistakes exposed, worry about damaging teamwork, and fear of evaluation. Conclusions: Findings indicated that providing prebriefing and considering students' level of simulation experience in sharing their recorded video may help ensure a psychologically safe environment. An instrument measuring psychological safety and evidence-based guidelines to ensure a safe learning environment needs to be developed.