Perioperative immersion program: Transition to practice

Abstract

<p>Purpose: To design, implement, and evaluate the effectiveness of a perioperative immersion program for senior nursing students to help the transition from classroom knowledge to practical skills and competency in the simulation laboratory, and during the clinical experiences in perioperative settings. </p> <p>Method: A nonrandomized, quasi-experimental design using a one-group pretest-posttest design was selected to determine if an educational intervention presented over a two-week period to 12 senior student nurses in a perioperative immersion program would improve the ability to acquire a higher level of knowledge, skills, and competency in the perioperative setting.</p> <p>Results: Comparisons of results from pre- and post tests on the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses total knowledge and comprehension examination on sterile technique using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test showed statistically significant differences. There was a 100% improvement in the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses validated competency on scrubbing, gowning, and gloving (SGG). The major implication showed improvement of the students’ cognitive and psychomotor skills with a validated competency in sterile technique and passing grades on the written examinations.</p> <p>Conclusions: There is a need to establish transitional educational interventions for the student nurse to integrate knowledge with skill acquisition and competency validation prior to graduation. Despite the small sample size, this perioperative immersion program established significant outcomes using classroom theory review, simulation, reflective journaling, observation tools, and clinical experiences with preceptors.</p>