Simulation Practices and Medical Error Tendencies in Nursing Students

NCT07349355 | Not Yet Recruiting

• 1 other identifier: 2024/024
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 81
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

As the professional group that has the most frequent contact with patients, nurses are critical to the sustainability of safe care. Literature demonstrates that nursing practice is prone to error due to heavy workloads, time pressures, complex clinical tasks, inadequate rest, inappropriate working conditions, and the physiological strain of demanding shifts. When these conditions strain both physical and cognitive resources, the risk of errors during treatment administration increases. Medical errors remain one of the most devastating realities of healthcare. Data from the World Health Organization reveals the significant morbidity and mortality caused by errors on a global scale. Numerous studies have demonstrated that student nurses have a significant rate of errors, and those with limited clinical experience are particularly at risk in fundamental areas such as medication administration, asepsis, and patient identification. Increasing patient numbers, short stays, rapid turnover, and the intense pace of clinics negatively impact student nurses' ability to provide safe care, prompting both educators and students to seek stronger pedagogical solutions. This is where simulation-based training comes into play. Simulation is emerging as a contemporary teaching approach that enables students to develop their clinical skills, communication, decision-making, and self-efficacy in a risk-free, safe, and structured environment. It is increasingly being used because it supports knowledge and skill transfer, reduces fear and anxiety, strengthens self-confidence, and provides the opportunity to experience errors. In-situ simulation and standardized patient practice offer strong potential for reducing students' error proneness by providing an experience closest to real-world clinical situations. However, the lack of a study in the literature examining the effects of these two methods, particularly on the medical error proneness and attitudes of final-year nursing students, is a significant gap. This study aims to strengthen a critical area of nursing education. The aim is to evaluate the impact of in-situ simulation and standardized patient practice on final-year nursing students' medical error proneness and attitudes toward medical errors and to reveal how they transform students' competencies in providing safe care.

Conditions

Patient Safety

Keywords

In-situ simulation; standardized patient; nursing students; randomized controlled trial; nursing education; medical error

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Medical error tendency scale scores of final-year nursing students

  Medical Error Tendency Scale The minimum possible score is 1, and the maximum is 5. While the scale does not have a cutoff point, an increase in the mean score indicates a low tendency for the nurse to make medical errors, while a decrease in the mean score indicates a high tendency to make errors.

  From registration to week 8 of intervention

Secondary Outcomes (1)

• Medical error attitude scale scores of final year nursing students

  From registration to week 8 of intervention

Study Arms (3)

Group 1

EXPERIMENTAL

Group 1 receives training in a simulation laboratory environment using standard patient interventions.

Other: Standardized patient

Group 2

EXPERIMENTAL

Group 2 receives training in a real hospital setting through on-site simulations and standardized patient interventions.

Other: İn-situ simulation

Group 3

NO INTERVENTION

Group 3 is the control group. They receive traditional classroom-based theoretical instruction.

Interventions

Standardized patient OTHER

Group 1 receives training in a simulation laboratory environment using standard patient interventions.

Group 1

İn-situ simulation OTHER

Group 2 receives training in a real hospital setting through on-site simulations and standardized patient interventions.

Group 2

Eligibility Criteria

• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Child (0-17), Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• A senior nursing student at Aydın Adnan Menderes University Faculty of Nursing
• Volunteering to participate in the study
• Not absent at any time during the study period
• Working/not working as a nurse

You may not qualify if:

• Graduated from a health vocational high school
• Admitted through the Foreign Student Exam (YÖS)
• Graduated from a health-related associate's degree program and then enrolled in the nursing department through the Vertical Transfer Exam (DGS)
• Students who did not wish to participate in the study were excluded from the study.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Selçuk Görücü: lead

Study Sites (1)

Adnan Menderes University

Aydin, Turkey (Türkiye)

Location

Central Study Contacts

Selçuk Görücü

CONTACT

+9005079554505; selcukgorucu@gmail.com

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: SINGLE
• Who Masked: OUTCOMES ASSESSOR
• Purpose: OTHER
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Lecturer

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: November 24, 2025
• First Posted: January 16, 2026
• Study Start: January 15, 2026
• Primary Completion: March 15, 2026
• Study Completion: May 1, 2026
• Last Updated: January 16, 2026

Record last verified: 2026-01

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will share
• Shared Documents: SAP, ICF, CSR
• Time Frame: August 2026-December 2026
• Access Criteria: Access to data will be available only after a written request from the researcher and a review by the research team for scientific relevance. Access will only be provided by securely transmitting designated datasets via email; no sharing will be made via any open-access repository or online platform.

Locations

TU (1)