Breaking Bad News via Telehealth: Simulation Training for Nurse Practitioner Students

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic demonstrated educators must consider stu-dents' future practice will involve patient communication via telehealth, including breaking bad news.Method: This mixed-methods analysis was conducted among 33 nurse practitioner (NP) students at two universities. Question-naires were analyzed before and after a simulation training session with standardized patients to determine students' perceptions, learning satisfaction, confidence, and self -rated preparedness for delivering bad news via telehealth.Results: Students' self-rated levels of preparedness for deliv-ering bad news were higher after participating in the simu-lation. Students found the teaching methods to be effective, enjoyable, motivating, and suitable to individual learning styles. Two themes emerged that described students' per-ceptions of the experience: valuable simulation processes and multifaceted learning applicable to future NP practice.Conclusion: Breaking bad news via virtual platforms is new and challenging. Findings suggest this simulation experi-ence provided a valuable tool for augmenting didactic train-ing for NP students.[J Nurs Educ. 2022;61(9):528-532.]