Enhancing labor and delivery learning experiences through simulation

Background: Maternal-child educators are seeking creative solutions to bridge didactic instruction to the clinical setting. Students have limited opportunities to provide hands-on obstetric care. Method: A pre-experimental design was used to assess junior-level baccalaureate nursing students' ability to transfer previous labor and delivery knowledge and clinical judgment to a simulated learning environment. A checklist was developed for nurse raters to evaluate team performance during the simulation learning experience. Results: The percentage of agreement for each pair of raters evaluating team performance using the video checklist during the simulation ranged from 72% to 82%, with kappas ranging from 0.40 to 0.62. Preliminary data show the checklist may be a viable option to evaluate clinical performance in a simulated labor and delivery environment. Conclusion: Future studies are needed to further evaluate learning strategies and outcomes using performance checklists.