The Psychological Impact of High-Risk Newborn Care Simulation Training on the Critical Thinking Disposition, Self-Leadership, Problem-Solving Ability, and Clinical Competency of Nursing College Students

Abstract

Introduction: Clinical competency is one of the core abilities that are required of nurses and emphasized by Korean Accreditation Board of Nursing Education. It refers to a nurse’s ability to expertly use knowledge, skills, and attitude in clinical settings. Simulation-based training is a method to allow students to experience different clinical situations. Previous studies reported that critical thinking disposition, problem-solving ability, and self-leadership are variables related to nurses’ clinical competency, albeit with somewhat conflicting results. This needs to be confirmed through further and repeated studies.

Objectives: This study utilizes a one-group pretest-posttest design to examine the impact of high-risk newborn care simulation training on nursing college students. The objective is to identify the factors that influence clinical competency and explore the correlation between the training and critical thinking disposition, self-leadership, problem-solving ability, and clinical competency of the students.

Methods: Data were collected both before and after the High-Risk Newborn Care Simulation-based training. The collected data were then analyzed using various statistical techniques, including SPSS/WIN 24.0 software. Descriptive statistics, paired t-tests, ANOVA, Pearson's correlation coefficients, and multiple regression analyses were employed to analyze the data.

Results: As a result, the mean score in critical thinking disposition, self-leadership, problem-solving ability and clinical competency increased a statistically significant level after Simulation-based training. And Clinical competency had statistically significant positive correlations with critical thinking disposition, problem-solving ability, and self-leadership. It was found that their clinical competency was affected by critical thinking disposition and self-leadership at statistically significant levels.

Conclusions: In order to help nursing college students, or future nurses, develop their clinical competency, attention needs to be paid to improving their critical thinking disposition and self-leadership. In addition, efforts need to be made to improve the quality of simulation-based training, which can supplement the limitations of clinical practice training.