A Pre-Briefing Educational Program Designed to Improve Confidence Levels for Health Assessment Graduate Nurse Practitioner Students Utilizing Standardized Patient Simulation Testing

Simulation is utilized in academic and clinical health care settings across disciplines. Simulation with standardized patients (SP) has also increased in undergraduate and graduate nursing programs to expose students to real-type, clinical scenarios. Although lack of competence and confidence increases with SP simulation (Barnes, 2015; McMillen, et.al., 2007), research also indicates decreased anxiety with pre-simulation preparation (Tyerman, Lutkar-flude, Graham, Coffey & Olsen- Lynch, 2016). Gibbons, Padden, Riccardi and Graziano (2002) also report inexperienced NP students show more anxiety when anticipating a simulation scenario in the health assessment lab. Therefore, the intent of this project was to examine the impact of a 15 minute, pre-briefing session prior to a SP simulation lab experience on confidence levels among first year graduate nurse practitioner students enrolled in an advanced health assessment course at a university setting in the northeast. A pre-post research design using the Nurse Anxiety Self-Confidence Clinical Decision -Making Scale (NASC-CDM) indicated a nonsignificant change in confidence levels but a significant reduction in anxiety levels. Recommendations include a more robust replication of this study with an increased, randomized sample and longer or more frequent pre-briefing sessions with structured activities to allow for more time to observe change in confidence scores and for greater faculty/student collaboration to bridge the gap between theory and clinical practice