The Impact of Trauma Simulation on Technical and Non-Technical Skills: A Concise Review

Trauma is a leading cause of death and a significant financial burden, requiring highly skilled and confident nursing care to improve patient outcomes. Despite the increasing adoption of simulation for trauma training, evidence of its effectiveness in building comprehensive interdisciplinary trauma skills remains limited.

To synthesize current evidence on the effectiveness of trauma simulation in enhancing both technical and non-technical skills in interdisciplinary trauma teams.

Source data were obtained from CINAHL, MEDLINE, the Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar literature review.

Inclusion criteria included all study types from January 2018 to September 2023 addressing the use of trauma simulation, trauma simulation in nursing education, trauma training, interdisciplinary trauma teams, and high-fidelity trauma simulation, regardless of methodology. Exclusion criteria included those articles that were not related to the impact of trauma simulations, training, or education on technical or non-technical skills. The search strategy was last executed on December 10, 2023.

A total of 27 articles met the inclusion criteria.

Four themes emerged from the data synthesis, including teamwork, non-technical skills, technical skills, and task completion.

The available evidence supports trauma simulation as an educational tool in improving teamwork, non-technical, and technical skills during trauma resuscitations, though more data is needed to determine its effect on patient outcomes.