The Impact of an Escape Room Simulation to Improve Nursing Teamwork, Leadership and Communication Skills: A Pilot Project

Abstract

Background. Commercial escape room simulation-based educational experiences were piloted on a cohort of ten RN-BSN students to determine the effect on mastery of communication, leadership, and teamwork skills. Methods. Pre-test/post-test research design and qualitative questions were used to measure the impact of an escape room simulation activity on teamwork, communication, and leadership skills. The Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety® Teamwork Attitudes Questionnaire, and self reported levels of confidence and competence questionnaire were administered pre/post escape room simulation to measure communication, team structure and leadership skills. The University of Miami-Crisis Resource Management tool was utilized to measure observed teamwork. Additionally, four open-ended qualitative self-reflective questions were asked following the escape room. Results. Data from the analysis of the pre and post observations of simulation encounters found statistically significant time dependent differences noting improvements in observed teamwork and leadership, p <.001, pre-mean 18.5, post-mean 35.0. Qualitative data revealed the participants found the escape room simulation to be an engaging teaching method to master teamwork and leadership skills. Conclusion. This pilot study sets the foundation for future use and exploration of escape room experiences to teach teamwork, communication, leadership and situational awareness. Following the escape room simulation, observed improvements in teamwork and leadership were found. Participants found the escape room activity to be an engaging experiential teaching method to promote attainment of critical skills needed to work as an effective member of a team. Study findings suggest that the use of an escape room can impart experiential learning with critical skills needed to work as an effective member of a team. As a result of this pilot study, nursing faculty developed an escape room simulation experience that was initiated the following semester.

Exploring in-person self-led debriefings for groups of learners in simulation-based education: an integrative review

“…For example, SLDs could take the form of in-person or online post-scenario reflective activities, in which learners work collaboratively on pre-determined tasks that align to ILOs. Examples such as escape room activities in SBE, in which learners work together to solve puzzles and complete tasks through gamified scenarios, have used concepts grounded in self-determination theory [ 86 ], with promising results in terms of improving self-reflection and learning outcomes [ 87 , 88 ]. Meanwhile, individual virtual SLD interventions, rooted in Kolb’s experiential learning theory [ 89 ], have been tested and purport to enable critical reflection amongst users [ 90 , 91 ].…”

Evaluation of a Postpartum Hemorrhage Escape Room: A Multisite Study

“…Effective teamwork has been shown to improve nursing satisfaction (Kalisch et al, 2010), reduce errors (Kuehster & Hall, 2010), improve communication (Makary & Daniel, 2016), lower mortality rates (Hughes et al, 2016; Wheelan et al, 2003), and improve nursing care (Kalisch & Lee, 2010). To properly prepare nursing students for clinical practice, educators should foster teamwork and collaborative skills in the curriculum (Valdes et al, 2021). Similar to these findings, other studies noted the improvement of teamwork and collaboration with escape room activities (Friedrich et al, 2020; Garwood, 2020; Morrell & Eukel, 2020).…”

Planning an Escape: Considerations for the Development of Applied Escape Rooms

“…The modifiable nature of escape rooms and their puzzles make for an efficacious avenue for research, education, team training, and team building. Escape rooms provide opportunities to practice social and cognitive skills in a collaborative, safe, and replicable environment (Pan, Lo, & Neustaedter, 2017), and have been successfully utilized to improve collaboration skills (Friedrich, Teaford, Taubenheim, Boland, & Sick, 2019; Kutzin, 2019), foster team cohesion (Warmelink et al, 2017) as well as augment educational interventions in a variety of applied domains, such as computer security (Béguin et al, 2019), engineering (Borrego, Fernández, Blanes, & Robles, 2017), and healthcare (Diemer, Jaffe, Papanagnou, Zhang, & Zavodnick, 2019; Edwards, Boothby, & Succheralli, 2019; Zhang, Diemer, Lee, Jaffe, & Papanagnou, 2019; Frederick & Reed, 2021; Valdes, Mckay, & Sanko, 2021).…”