A Comparison of Student Registered Nurse Anesthetists Pharmacology Knowledge Acquisition and Long-Term Retention Following Exposure to Didactic Instruction and Experiential Learning Versus Didactic Instruction Alone

Abstract

High fidelity simulation (HFS) is a useful method to teach practical information without the risk of harming a live patient. It is a teaching method used in at least half of all nurse anesthesia programs, but not generally designed to specifically focus on pharmacology content. Similarly, there is no research that specifically explores the use of HFS to supplement didactic pharmacology education in nurse anesthesia. Because of this, we designed a study to investigate the impact that HFS has on the pharmacologic knowledge acquisition and retention of student registered nurse anesthetists (SRNAs). This pilot study recruited fifteen SRNAs to participate in a pharmacology curriculum that included a traditional didactic lecture supplemented with a pharmacology focused HFS experience. Their baseline pharmacologic knowledge was assessed with a pretest that indicated no significant difference in the scores (p=0.34). After the simulation, all participants scored 20% higher on knowledge assessment questions related to pharmacology content that was supplemented with simulation and 1% lower on the content that was taught via the traditional didactic lecture alone (p