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In response to a need for improved quality and safety of health care delivery in the United States, patient-centered care (PCC) is strongly endorsed by the Institute of Medicine (IOM, 2010), the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (2008), and the American Nurses Association (Olson & Stokes, 2016). PCC is reflected in the recognition of the patient as a full partner in care, which is based on respect for each patient's values, preferences, and needs (Quality and Safety Education for Nurses, 2017). Furthermore, PCC relies on health professionals' adeptness at working with a growing diverse population, including providing culturally sensitive care (Fioravanti et al., 2018). Nurses play a vital role in providing PCC across all health care levels and settings, and the IOM (2010) called for improvements in nursing education to ensure student learning outcomes reflect competencies in PCC skills and delivery. Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (2017) offers specific PCC nursing education competencies focused on knowledge, skills, and attitudes. The purpose of this educational innovation was to improve students' understanding of PCC through role-play simulation.
The increasing use of simulation is one improvement in nursing education endorsed by numerous health care organizations, including the IOM (2010), the National League for Nursing (NLN, 2015), and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (Cook, 2013). Ranging from the use of manikins and standardized patients (SPs) to role-play, simulation provides realistic scenarios with diverse perspectives, creating guided, interactive, and transformational learning experiences (Gaba, 2004; NLN, 2015). Simulation can serve to teach and measure student competencies, bridging a gap between education and practice (Fioravanti et al., 2018).
Evidence supports simulation's effectiveness as a tool for health care profession students (Aebersold & Tschannen, 2013; Cant & Cooper, 2017; Foronda, Liu, & Bauman, 2013; Kim, Park, & Shin, 2016). In particular, simulation using SPs has been found to be effective in teaching PCC skills congruent with therapeutic communication techniques, cultural sensitivity, and self-awareness of biases using trained individuals portraying patients in realistic situations, which provides an opportunity for enhanced learning through human interaction and feedback (Fioravanti et al., 2018; Kaplonyi et al., 2017; Lewis et al., 2017).
Role-play is considered a low-fidelity SP simulation described as an “active process whereby nurses simulate a situation,” which has the benefit of...