The experience of end of life care simulation at a rural Australian University

Are newly graduated nurses ready to deal with death and dying? - A literature review

“…Simulation is presented by several authors as a useful strategy in preparing students for end of life scenarios [17,18,22,24,[26][27][28][29][30], particularly as opportunities to care for these people while learning may be limited. Simulation was found to be effective in increasing knowledge, self-confidence [26,28,29], self-reported communication skills and student satisfaction [26].…”

“…Students found real time patient status changes in simulation to be valuable in addition to providing a safe learning environment for improving technical skills [27,28]. Some authors [17,29] indicate that simulation is useful as it assists in the recreation of an emotionally charged experience, but in a safe environment [17] which can lead to a reduction in anxiety amongst nursing students, especially those who are younger with limited experiences of death and grief [29]. Yildiz & Akansel [31] support this, recommending that first year students not undertake placement in the clinical environment if there was a high possibility of caring for dying people.…”

“…Dobbins [15] identified the use of movies and movie clips, 'cinemeducation' (p.161) as a means of promoting reflection, and influencing attitudes by linking the experiences to feelings and beliefs for nursing students, which decreased anxiety, avoidance and negative feelings about dying and increased acceptance of death as a life stage. Gillan et al [17] also describe the use of 'cinemeducation' which involves the use of feature films to engage students in thinking about grief, loss and the intention on the attitude of students toward death and those who are dying and enhanced their ability to care for the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual needs of these people. There is also recognition of the need for skilled academics to teach into these areas and clinical placements that are specific to the practice of palliative care [10].…”

“…This appears to be a global phenomenon revealed by studies in various countries including, India [16], Australia [10,11,17], and the United States of America [15,18]. An area of concern that is raised amongst a number of studies [11,19] is that students do not realise they are unprepared to address this area of nursing until they are in practice.…”

Using simulation as a learning experience in clinical teams to learn about palliative and end-of-life care: A literature review

“…More studies addressed whether students had learnt about nursing practices through their participation in the simulation (Ellman et al, 2012;Gillan, Parmenter, van der Riet, & Jeong, 2013;Leavy, Vanderhoffy, & Ravert, 2011;Smith, Witt, Klaassen, Zimmerman, & Cheng, 2012). However, studies that included other professions did not report participants recognizing the role of nurses (Ellman et al, 2012).…”