Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. This study aims to describe and compare the effects of standardised patient simulation and role-play in the acquisition and retention of interprofessional communication in elderly care competence amongst nursing students. In this controlled clustered randomised trial, nursing students attended a workshop on interprofessional communication in elderly care using role-play or standardised patient simulation.
The study was conducted between September and February Between-subject and within-subject differences were measured using counts and proportions of participants who achieved competence. Regardless of the strategy applied, a significant improvement in knowledge, skills, self-efficacy and overall interprofessional communication competence was found between pre-test and post-test. Moreover, there were significant differences between pre-test and follow-up for all the studied variables, but no differences were found between post-test and follow-up.
In conclusion, standardised patient simulation and role-play have been shown to promote an improvement on knowledge, self-efficacy and interprofessional communication skills in nursing students, although it is not possible to state which strategy is the most adequate for teaching this competency. Keywords: interprofessional communication, nursing, role-play, simulation, standardised patient.
Interprofessional communication is understood to be a collaborative approach to the exchange of information between professionals in an open and responsive manner [ 1 ]. Older patients have complex health needs and they require coordinated interprofessional teams that give them holistic care planning [ 2 ]. Research suggests that effective interprofessional communication in elderly care can reduce pain, falls, depression, length of hospital admissions and mortality amongst older people [ 3 ].
Moreover, competent interprofessional communication has been associated with less stress in the workplace and higher satisfaction levels amongst older adults and healthcare professionals [ 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 ]. However, a large percentage of sentinel events occur due to interprofessional communication failures [ 8 ]. Ineffective interprofessional communication leads to delays in treatment, medication errors, patient injury and even death [ 9 , 10 , 11 ].
