Authors

  1. Bauer, Renee
  2. Moore, Teressa MS, RN
  3. Moore, Jill PhD, RN, CNE
  4. Anderson, Heather MS, RN

Article Content

The opioid crisis strains health care resources from those on frontlines in emergency departments (EDs), hospitals, and treatment facilities. This contributes to the challenge to provide adequate clinical sites for students in psychiatric nursing courses. In response, a simulation was created to provide students an experiential learning opportunity to face the opioid addiction crisis head-on in the safety of a simulated environment. The design for this pilot study was based on a 30-minute exercise set followed by a debriefing. Pretests and posttests were administered. At the close of the exercise, students completed a reflection paper. The scenario was a simulated ED, a drug-seeking patient, an ED nurse, and a health care provider. Students were divided in groups of 2 and 3 in the ED nurse role. A live actor portrayed the role of the drug-seeking patient. The scenario starts with a soft-spoken patient whose request for intravenous morphine was not met and then is transformed into a loud, manipulative, and demanding patient. Students had 1 previous simulation experience, which included a high-fidelity simulator and no live actor experience. Themes included realism, increased awareness of the importance of therapeutic communication, a positive experience, and more confidence to care for a drug-seeking patient. In the debriefing, students were critical of themselves focusing on distractors such as unrelated laboratory reports versus the "big picture" of the simulation.