A pilot study to investigate the effect of a simulation strategy on the clinical decision making of midwifery students

The actual effect of the use of simulations on clinical decision making is inconclusive. This pilot study used a post-test design to determine the effect of a simulation strategy on the clinical decision-making process of midwifery students. Thirty-six graduate diploma students volunteered and were randomly assigned to two groups, with the experimental group receiving two simulation sessions (normal labor and physiological jaundice), and the control group receiving the two usual lectures. The main findings were that students who received the simulation strategy collected more clinical information, revisited collected clinical information less, made fewer formative inferences, reported higher confidence levels, and for the post-test normal labor simulation, reached a final decision more quickly. Such effects are reasonable for this type of intervention with the existent variability in each group. Further research with a larger sample size and more rigorous data collection strategies is required.