Nursing education and training based on content and technicality has undergone a process over the years mainly with the proposal of national curriculum guidelines to implement changes in the curriculum and the insertion of new teaching methodologies by educational institutions. Thus, realistic simulation is born with the proposal to actively teach students and promote the development of numerous skills and competences. Objective: to analyze evidence of the use and effectiveness of realistic simulation as an active method of teaching and learning in nursing in the academic and professional context. Methodology: Integrative review, carried out on the databases: Cochrane, ERIC, Medline, Science Direct and PubMed. The descriptors were selected based on the list of Health Sciences Descriptors - DeCS / MeSH were: Nursing, Active learning, simulation training, matching the search terms, using the Boolean operator AND. Results: The final sample resulted in 37 articles. It was possible to observe that the simulation helps in critical thinking, reasoning, clinical judgment, leadership, autonomy and decision-making favoring patient care and that it can be performed in different formats, such as virtual simulation, clinical case simulators, simulation with games and room simulation with simulated scenario. The introduction of this methodology in educational institutions ended up being a limitation found, in addition to the need for technologies and training for teachers. Conclusion: From the results of this study, it is concluded that realistic simulation is a method capable of preparing students and professionals to meet health needs.