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Background: Clinical practicums are a core component of baccalaureate nursing education. Following the coronavirus pandemic, there have been extensive changes in the workforce environment that may potentially affect nursing students' experience and readiness for clinical practicums., Methods: A qualitative study was conducted to explore final-year nursing students' experiences and readiness for their final clinical practicum before becoming a registered nurse. A purposive sample of 24 final-year baccalaureate nursing students was included in this study. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted face-to-face via Zoom. The data was analysed using an inductive thematic analysis approach., Results: Three themes depicting students' experiences and clinical readiness were elucidated. The themes included: (1) Experiencing multiple concerns, (2) requiring a network of support, and (3) easing the transition to professional practice. Students considered the final clinical practicum as challenging and demanding which evoked numerous concerns., Conclusions: Considering the stress that final-year nursing students experience, it will be important to devise strategies ranging from personal, relational, and environmental protective factors to enable their successful transition and completion of clinical practice., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Background: The maintenance of nursing professional competency is essential to ensure patients' health outcomes. With the current shortage of nursing workforce, a novel approach is necessary to refresh clinical skills and update practice., Objective: This study aims to examine the effectiveness of using head-mounted display virtual reality to refresh knowledge and skills and explore nurses' perceptions towards using this technology for refresher training., Design: A pre-test post-test mixed-method experimental design was employed., Results: Participants ( n  = 88) were registered nurses with a diploma in nursing. The intravenous therapy and subcutaneous injection procedures were implemented using head-mounted display virtual reality. The study showed significant improvement in knowledge for the procedures, cognitive absorption, online readiness, self-directed learning, and motivation for learning. In the qualitative focus group discussions, three themes were identified using thematic analyses: enjoyable way to refresh clinical knowledge; learning outside classroom and limitations in maneuver., Conclusion: Using head-mounted display virtual reality is promising in refreshing clinical skills for nurses. Training and refresher courses can explore using this novel technology, which may be a viable alternative to ensure professional competence with reduced manpower and resources used by the healthcare institution.

Background: Interprofessional team training is needed to improve nurse-physician communication skills that are lacking in clinical practice. Using simulations has proven to be an effective learning approach for team training. Yet, it has logistical constraints that call for the exploration of virtual environments in delivering team training., Objective: This study aimed to evaluate a team training program using virtual reality vs conventional live simulations on medical and nursing students' communication skill performances and teamwork attitudes., Methods: In June 2018, the authors implemented nurse-physician communication team training using communication tools. A randomized controlled trial study was conducted with 120 undergraduate medical and nursing students who were randomly assigned to undertake team training using virtual reality or live simulations. The participants from both groups were tested on their communication performances through team-based simulation assessments. Their teamwork attitudes were evaluated using interprofessional attitude surveys that were administered before, immediately after, and 2 months after the study interventions., Results: The team-based simulation assessment revealed no significant differences in the communication performance posttest scores (P=.29) between the virtual and simulation groups. Both groups reported significant increases in the interprofessional attitudes posttest scores from the baseline scores, with no significant differences found between the groups over the 3 time points., Conclusions: Our study outcomes did not show an inferiority of team training using virtual reality when compared with live simulations, which supports the potential use of virtual reality to substitute conventional simulations for communication team training. Future studies can leverage the use of artificial intelligence technology in virtual reality to replace costly human-controlled facilitators to achieve better scalability and sustainability of team-based training in interprofessional education., Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04330924; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04330924., (©Sok Ying Liaw, Sim Win Ooi, Khairul Dzakirin Bin Rusli, Tang Ching Lau, Wilson Wai San Tam, Wei Ling Chua. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 08.04.2020.)