Virtual clinical simulation as a paedagogical strategy in healthcare learning: Evidence and Gap Map protocol

Virtual clinical simulation involves creating and applying scenarios using technology like computers or virtual reality. This method provides a secure experiential learning environment, encouraging active student participation and stimulating clinical, critical and reflective thinking. This article outlines the development of the Evidence and Gap Map, which aims to identify, quantify and visually and interactively classify existing systematic reviews on the effectiveness of virtual clinical simulations in health professional training.

The Evidence and Gap Map will adhere to the Campbell Collaboration Guidelines. Bibliographic searches in six databases will follow inclusion criteria determined by the Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome and Study design strategy. After the initial calibration, two reviewers will independently apply the inclusion and exclusion criteria to the title and abstract of each identified study, with subsequent full reading of the selected articles. The methodological quality of the included systematic reviews will be assessed with the AMSTAR 2 tool. The map will be developed using the EPPI-Mapper software.

There is no requirement for ethical approval for this systematic review. On completion, it will be published in a peer-reviewed academic journal and presented at a conference. This review protocol was registered on the Open Science Framework platform (OSF Associated Project Registration: osf.io/r6wdc and received the following DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/R6WDC).