Nursing CE Central
To think of escape rooms is to think of a fun night out with friends or team-building activities in Corporate America. But they could also be used to help train intensive care nurses.
A new study out of China, published earlier this month in BMC Medical Education, proposed just that to help “promote teamwork attitudes and intensive care knowledge” among new ICU nurses.
The escape room teaching method has been used in other nursing specialties, but the study authors said there hadn’t been any research specifically related to ICU nursing.
The Association of PeriOperative Registered Nurses called escape rooms — a puzzle and clue-based game in which participants have to work together to complete tasks that will allow them to “escape” a themed-room — a “clinical teaching strategy.”
AORN suggests six key design elements for an effective escape room learning model:
Escape room training incorporates simulated scenarios, but with a “more exciting, fascinating, interactive, and collaborative approach” than traditional healthcare simulations, according to the study authors.
The Chinese researchers applied the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s five principles of teamwork training:
The University of South Australia has implemented an escape room experience into its curriculum. Dr. Michelle Freeling, who created the escape room, told the Australian Nursing & Midwifery Journal that the activity simulates “high-pressure situations,” like what would be experienced in a traditional healthcare environment.
“It’s important to create really engaging, fun, ways of learning, particularly because the newer generations of nurses who participate in postgraduate education, or even undergraduate education, their learning expectations are different,” Feeling said. “When we are innovative as educators, we create better education.”
Escape room planning worksheets and examples also are available through AORN.
Fifteen groups of nurses — who all had less than two years of ICU experience — convened at a tertiary hospital in Yunnan Province, Southwest China, for the exercise detailed in the BMC Medical Education study. Each group’s escape room training lasted between three and four hours and included four challenges:
After selecting a leader, the teams of ICU nurses worked together to save their patient, which included the need to “find clues by monitoring and giving nursing care to solve the puzzle,” the authors stated.
“Players were obliged to hunt for clues in the room related to the four challenges,” the authors stated. “For example, players were told by the audio that doctors’ prescription was locked in the box as a clue, and they had to find a four-digit password to open the box. To obtain four digital passwords, the players needed to have the right assessment of the patient, including the pupillary response, consciousness, and muscle strength of both sides.”
The study found that teamwork attitudes “were significantly different” before and after the escape room training and that escape room training “might enhance intensive care knowledge and satisfaction of new nurses.”
“Since escape room training can be carried out without expensive equipment in any context and discipline, it’s a promising method with cost-effectiveness value for nursing and medical education globally,” the authors stated.
Escape room-style training for new nurses or soon-to-be graduated nurses have been used in recent years to simulate high-stress environments with low stakes. A new study found that this method helps “promote teamwork attitudes and intensive care knowledge” among intensive care unit nurses.
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