Adapting Pediatric Clinical Experiences to a Changing Health Care Environment

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Nursing Education
• Public Health Nursing
• Clinical Simulation

Background:

• Hospital consolidation limits pediatric clinical opportunities for nursing students.
• Schools offer a viable alternative for combined pediatric and public health clinical experiences.
• Innovative clinical settings are needed to enhance nursing education.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare pediatric knowledge acquisition between hospital-based and community-based clinical experiences.
• To evaluate clinical simulation performance in prelicensure nursing students based on clinical setting.
• To determine the efficacy of school-based clinical experiences in pediatric nursing education.

Main Methods:

• Quasi-experimental design comparing two groups of prelicensure nursing students.
• Assessment of pediatric nursing knowledge through standardized testing.
• Evaluation of clinical skills using standardized patient simulations.
• Data analysis comparing knowledge scores and simulation performance between groups.

Main Results:

• No statistically significant difference in pediatric knowledge scores between hospital-based and community-based clinical groups.
• No significant difference in clinical simulation performance between the two groups.
• Community-based (school) clinical experiences are as effective as traditional hospital-based experiences for knowledge and simulation outcomes.

Conclusions:

• School-based pediatric clinical experiences provide equivalent learning outcomes to hospital-based settings.
• Public health-focused clinical experiences in schools can effectively prepare nursing students in pediatrics.
• Educational strategies should consider community settings to broaden clinical learning opportunities.