Abstract
Simulation training is used extensively in EMC training, but students need help with Clinical Decision-Making (CDM) when doing simulations. There seems to be a gap where students do not have opportunities to adequately practice or self-assess CDM before being expected to apply it in simulation training and assessment. Serious Games (SG) offer a possible solution to this problem, allowing students to practice and self-assess CDM in a simulated game-like environment, prior to engaging in simulations. However, SG are relatively new to the pre-hospital environment, and more needs to be known about emergency medical care student experiences of serious games for pre-simulation clinical decision-making. This technology has been used, and research supports learning improvements through playing modulated games in various healthcare studies. However, these studies are mostly limited to the in-hospital environment with little focus on pre-hospital emergency care. Recommendations from these studies include focusing on different professions in the healthcare system by testing the clinical effectiveness of SG for specific skill improvements. Before testing the clinical effectiveness of SG, we need to know the experiences of emergency medical care students when using serious games for practice and self-assessment of pre-simulation CDM.
Data from the study was collected via three focus group discussions after the students used the Full Code Emergency Medicine Simulation (FCMS) serious games. This study used a qualitative method to draw the data and the study was conducted on the Doornfontein Campus at the University of Johannesburg in the Emergency Medical Care classrooms. The data were collected via three focus group discussions (25 BEMC students), which were audio-recorded. These audio recordings were transcribed and coded, using in vivo and process coding and thematically analyzed to generate the themes. These themes, activating clinical decision making, mixed sentiments and pitfalls resulted in a table of suggestions for using serious games in the future.
Prospects to use SG for pre-simulation CDM are promising as students explain different ways how SG can assist them with CDM and simulations. However, some students
have mixed sentiments on using SG for this purpose and mentioned some pitfalls on its use.