The effect of clinical experience, judgment task difficulty and time pressure on nurses’ confidence calibration in a high fidelity clinical simulation

Background: Misplaced or poorly calibrated confidence in healthcare professionals’ judgments compromises the quality of health care. Using higher fidelity clinical simulations to elicit clinicians’ confidence 'calibration' (i.e. overconfidence or underconfidence) in more realistic settings is a promising but underutilized tactic. In this study we examine nurses’ calibration of confidence with judgment accuracy for critical event risk assessment judgments in a high fidelity simulated clinical environment. The study also explores the effects of clinical experience, task difficulty and time pressure on the relationship between confidence and accuracy. Methods: 63 student and 34 experienced nurses made dichotomous risk assessments on 25 scenarios simulated in a high fidelity clinical environment. Each nurse also assigned a score (0–100) reflecting the level of confidence in their judgments. Scenarios were derived from real patient cases and classified as easy or difficult judgment tasks. Nurses made half of their judgments under time pressure. Confidence calibration statistics were calculated and calibration curves generated. Results: Nurse students were underconfident (mean over/underconfidence score −1.05) and experienced nurses overconfident (mean over/underconfidence score 6.56), P = 0.01. No significant differences in calibration and resolution were found between the two groups (P = 0.80 and P = 0.51, respectively). There was a significant interaction between time pressure and task difficulty on confidence (P = 0.008); time pressure increased confidence in easy cases but reduced confidence in difficult cases. Time pressure had no effect on confidence or accuracy. Judgment task difficulty impacted significantly on nurses’ judgmental accuracy and confidence. A 'hard-easy' effect was observed: nurses were overconfident in difficult judgments and underconfident in easy judgments. Conclusion: Nurses were poorly calibrated when making risk assessment judgments in a high fidelity simulated setting. Nurses with more experience tended toward overconfidence. Whilst time pressure had little effect on calibration, nurses’ over/underconfidence varied significantly with the degree of task difficulty. More research is required to identify strategies to minimize such cognitive biases

Theorising simulation in higher education: difficulty for learners as an emergent phenomenon

Despite the widespread interest in using and researching simulation in higher education, little discussion has yet to address a key pedagogical concern: difficulty. A ‘sociomaterial’ view of learning, explained in this paper, goes beyond cognitive considerations to highlight dimensions of material, situational, representational and relational difficulty confronted by students in experiential learning activities such as simulation. In this paper we explore these dimensions of difficulty through three contrasting scenarios of simulation education. The scenarios are drawn from studies conducted in three international contexts: Australia, Sweden and the UK, which illustrate diverse approaches to simulation and associated differences in the forms of difficulty being produced. For educators using simulation, the key implications are the importance of noting and understanding (1) the effects on students of interaction among multiple forms of difficulty; (2) the emergent and unpredictable nature of difficulty; and (3) the need to teach students strategies for managing emergent difficulty

Development of Clinical Judgement for Hispanic and Non-Hispanic Nursing Students: a Comparison of Traditional and Simulated Clinical Experiences

A mixed method design evaluating for differences in students development of clinical judgment based on clinical experiences. Traditional, combination, and high fidelity simulation clinical experiences were compared. Weekly evaluations based on the Lasater Clinical Judgment Rubric were compared. Students participated in focus interviews at the completion of the study to determine perceptions of the clinical experience in terms of clinical judgment development. There were no differences based on qualitative and quantitative measures. Students in all three groups increased in clinical judgment scores and reported satisfaction in the individual clinical experience

Residents’ perceptions of simulation as a clinical learning approach

Background: Simulation is increasingly being integrated into medical education; however, there is little research into trainees’ perceptions of this learning modality. We elicited trainees’ perceptions of simulation-based learning, to inform how simulation is developed and applied to support training.Methods: We conducted an instrumental qualitative case study entailing 36 semi-structured one-hour interviews with 12 residents enrolled in an introductory simulation-based course. Trainees were interviewed at three time points: pre-course, post-course, and 4-6 weeks later. Interview transcripts were analyzed using a qualitative descriptive analytic approach.Results: Residents’ perceptions of simulation included: 1) simulation serves pragmatic purposes; 2) simulation provides a safe space; 3) simulation presents perils and pitfalls; and 4) optimal design for simulation: integration and tension. Key findings included residents’ markedly narrow perception of simulation’s capacity to support non-technical skills development or its use beyond introductory learning.Conclusion: Trainees’ learning expectations of simulation were restricted. Educators should critically attend to the way they present simulation to learners as, based on theories of problem-framing, trainees’ a priori perceptions may delimit the focus of their learning experiences. If they view simulation as merely a replica of real cases for the purpose of practicing basic skills, they may fail to benefit from the full scope of learning opportunities afforded by simulation.

Comparing Methods of Diagnostic Reasoning in Nursing

Background. Several methods of diagnostic reasoninghave been explained in the literature, but there has been noresearch to date comparing one method of diagnostic reasoningto another.Aims. This study aimed to identify differences between the 4steps method and the 6 steps method of diagnostic reasoning interms of what the possible diagnoses based on scenario providedand in terms of ease of use, effectiveness, usefulness and thepossibility of implementation in a clinical setting.Method. Forty four participants, including nurse practitionersand academics participated in this study. All participants wereattending a diagnostic reasoning workshop. Participants weretaught the 4 steps method and the 6 steps method of formulatinga nursing diagnosis. Using three scenarios participants identifiedpossible diagnoses using each method, which were thencompared. The participants were subsequently given aquestionnaire with Likert scale. Statistical analysis with aWilcoxon signed-rank test was performed using SPSS version 20.Result. Results of this study showed that the 6 step method ofdiagnostic reasoning can identify more possible plausiblediagnoses and differential diagnoses (DDx) than the 4 stepmethod can. The 6 steps method of diagnostic reasoning alsoreduced the possibility of identifying inaccurate nursingdiagnoses. The 6 steps method was considered easier to use, moreeffective, more useful and more likely to be implemented in aclinical setting than the 4 steps method (p<0.001)

Identification of care needs of patients with and without the use of a classification instrument

Objective: To analyze the agreement and disagreement between the assessments by applying or not a patient classification instrument, and to investigate the association between the agreement and personal and professional characteristics of the evaluators. Method: This is a descriptive exploratory study. 105 patients were hospitalized in a teaching hospital in the state of Sao Paulo, using the kappa statistic (weighted) and the Bootstrap method. Results: The agreement between the assessments were​​: kw 0.87 (instrument x internal evaluator), kw 0.78 (instrument x external evaluator) and kw 0.76 (between evaluators) and the influence of some personal and professional characteristics. The assessments conducted through the use of an instrument contemplated a greater number of areas of care in relation to when the instrument was not applied. Conclusion: The use of this instrument is recommended in order to more effectively identify care needs of patients.


Objetivo: Analisar a concordância e a discordância entre as avaliações realizadas mediante a aplicação ou não de instrumento de classificação de pacientes, e investigar a associação entre a concordância e as características pessoais e profissionais dos avaliadores. Método: Trata-se de um estudo descritivo exploratório. Foram investigados 105 pacientes internados em hospital de ensino do interior do Estado de São Paulo utilizando-se a estatística kappa (ponderado) e o método Bootstrap. Resultados: A concordância entre as avaliações apontou: kw 0,87 (instrumento x avaliador interno), kw 0,78 (instrumento x avaliador externo) e kw 0,76 (entre os avaliadores) e a influência de algumas características pessoais e profissionais. As avaliações conduzidas mediante o uso de instrumento contemplaram maior número de áreas de cuidado em relação a quando o instrumento não foi aplicado. Conclusão: Recomenda-se o uso deste instrumento a fim de se obter identificação mais efetiva das necessidades cuidativas dos pacientes.

Objetivo: Analizar la concordancia y la discordancia entre las evaluaciones realizadas mediante la aplicación o no de un instrumento de clasificación de pacientes e investigar la asociación entre la concordancia y las características personales y profesionales de los evaluadores. Método: Estudio descriptivo exploratorio. Se investigaron a 105 pacientes internados en hospital universitario del interior del Estado de São Paulo utilizándose la estadística kappa (ponderado) y el método Bootstrap. Resultados: La concordancia entre las evaluaciones reveló: kw 0,87 (instrumento x evaluador interno), kw 0,78 (instrumento x evaluador externo) y kw 0,76 (entre los evaluadores) y la influencia de algunas características personales y profesionales. Las evaluaciones conducidas mediante el empleo de instrumento contemplaron mayor número de áreas de cuidado en comparación a cuando no se aplicó el instrumento. Conclusión: Se recomienda el uso de este instrumento a fin de lograr una identificación más efectiva de las necesidades de cuidados a los pacientes.

Overconfident health workers provide lower quality healthcare

While a growing body of evidence suggests that healthcare workers in low and middle-income countries often provide poor quality of care, the reasons behind such low performance remain unclear. The literature on medical decision-making suggests that cognitive biases, or failures related to the way healthcare providers think, explain many diagnostic errors. This study investigates whether one cognitive bias, overconfidence, defined as the tendency to overestimate one's performance relative to others, is associated with the low quality of care provided in Senegal. We link survey data on the overconfidence of health workers to objective measures of the quality of care they provide to standardised patients – enumerators who pose as real patients and record details of the consultation. We find that about a third of providers are overconfident – meaning that they overestimate their own abilities relative to their peers. We then show that overconfident providers are 26% less likely to manage patients correctly and exert less effort in clinical practice. These results suggest that the low levels of quality of care observed in some settings could be partly explained by the cognitive biases of providers, such as overconfidence. Policies that encourage adequate supervision and feedback to healthcare workers might reduce such failures in clinical decision-making