An exploration of prelicensure nursing students' experiences providing health education to standardized patients

Standardized patients are human actors who portray specific disease processes or situations during simulated clinical experiences. Standardized patients have been studied more widely in medical education and advanced practice nursing education than in undergraduate nursing education. The problem addressed by this study was the need for evidence to guide practice regarding the use of standardized patients in undergraduate nursing education. A conceptual framework comprised of experiential learning theory and the concept of patient-centered care was used to develop the basic qualitative study which was an investigation of the experiences of undergraduate nursing students who practiced providing health education to a standardized patient. Eleven second-year students enrolled in the second of three medical-surgical nursing courses in an associate degree nursing program participated in the study by voluntarily agreeing to provide health education about diabetes to a standardized patient. Data were collected through individual interviews with each participant, pre-experience and post-experience journals from each participant, and observation notes that were recorded during each simulation. A constant comparative method with open and axial coding was used to derive themes from the data. The five resulting interrelated themes ---benefits, realism, teaching opportunity, preparedness, and confidence ---blended to formulate the study participants' descriptions of their experiences with the standardized patient. Study participants provided positive feedback, citing the realism of the simulation as the most beneficial aspect of working with a standardized patient. Based on findings derived from the group of participants in this study, practical implications include the use of standardized patients in the simulation laboratory to benefit undergraduate nursing students' learning by adding a dimension of realism to nursing education simulations, particularly in simulations designed for students to practice providing patient health education. Implications for further study include replication of the study with a larger group of students or in a more varied group of students. Because participants from this study stated they believed that working with a standardized patient in the simulation lab could increase their preparedness for classroom exams and clinical rotations, further study could be conducted to test the participants' hypotheses.