Project and Preliminary Evaluation of SimHosp, a Tool for Decision Making in Nursing.

Computerized simulators are important tools that support teaching in many areas. The use of these instruments is often described as significant for students and teachers. In this paper, a software piece was developed to aid decision-making in nursing, allowing the simulation of real situations, addressed in the classroom. The simulator architecture corresponds to a multiagent system supported by a state machine model. To build the knowledge base, a list of contents was selected, including the Nursing Intervention Classification (NIC). An experiment was carried out with the participation of eleven students of the third year of the course. A questionnaire was applied and, as a result, there were more than 90% of acceptance as a relevant educational tool. The simulation, through this tool, contributed to apply theoretical knowledge to the students, besides helping in the development of the nursing decision-making ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]