Do nurses see the broader picture?

Source: Nurse Education Today; Jun2014, Vol. 34 Issue 6, pe27-e31

Date of Publication: June 2014

In a nutshell: There is usually a fair amount going on in a hospital ward and being aware of what’s happening is vital. Researchers from Monash University in Australia looked into the ‘situation awareness,’ of final-year nursing students. 97 students took part in three video-recorded simulation events with a trained actor playing a student. The nurses’ overall situation awareness was low (41%) with their physiological perceptions being lowest (26%) and their projection (their ability to forecast what would happen to the patient) being the highest (59%). The researchers concluded that ‘this is an aspect of undergraduate nursing education that requires significant consideration by curriculum developers.’