STANDARDIZED PATIENTS EXPERIENCE (SPE) IN IMPROVING THERAPEUTIC COMMUNICATION SKILL OF UNDERGRADUATE NURSING STUDENTS COMPARED TO EARLY CLINICAL EXPOSURE (ECE)

Introduction. Therapeutic communication skill is the main competency of nurses. Lack of therapeutic communication capability will cause difficulties in engaging therapeutic relationship between nurse and patient. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of Standardized Patient Experience (SPE) in enhancing therapeutic communication skill of undergraduate nursing students compared to Early Clinical Exposure (ECE). Method. This study was quasi-experimental study used 47 undergraduate nursing students as the sample and divided into control and experiment group. The data was analysed by using t-independent test with significant value of 0.05. Results. There was no significant difference between the improvement of therapeutic communication skill in SPE and ECE group (p=0,576), the mean of therapeutic communication skill scores were significantly improved in each group (p=0,40; p=0,15 in SPE and ECE, respectively). Students’ satisfaction level in SPE group is significantly higher than the ECE (p=0,003). Discussion. The SPE method is as effective as the ECE in teaching therapeutic communication, so that SPE can be used as alternative if teaching opportunity in clinical practice was not possible to be conducted. Keywords: standardized patient experience; early clinical exposure; therapeutic communication, simulatio