Using branching path simulations in critical thinking of pain management among nursing students: Experimental study

Background: Nursing education has to promote nursing students' critical thinking skills especially those who are going to work with people with dementia suffering from pain. Therefore, nursing education needs to incorporate new and effective teaching methods in nursing curricula for critical thinking skills promotion. Branching path simulation is an interactive learning tool which helps students; (1) to make decisions about treatment options for patients and get feedback immediately and (2) to demonstrate and promote their critical thinking skills in a safe and supported environment before dealing with complex and real-life case scenarios. Objectives: The present study aimed to examine the effectiveness of branching path simulation in promoting the critical thinking skills of undergraduate nursing students. Methods: This an equivalent control group pretest-posttest experimental study was done in 2019 on 102 undergraduate nursing students who had registered in both practical and theoretical courses of Advanced Adult Health Nursing. A pretest posttest experimental design with concurrent control group and random assignment to the treatment/nontreatment variable was used and a convenience sample of 102 nursing students was recruited in this study. The students were randomly assigned and divided into two equal intervention and control groups and each group attended different training sessions. The control group was trained by traditional lectures while the intervention group was trained by branching path simulation. The researcher used a demographic questionnaire and the Critical Thinking Self-Assessment Scale (CTSAS) for data collection. Results: After the training sessions, the mean scores of the CTSAS and its subscales domain in the intervention group were significantly higher than the control group. Conclusions: Branching path simulation is an effective teaching method to promote students' critical thinking skills. Future studies are recommended to examine the effect of branching path simulation on other nursing students learning outcomes.