Stress and anxiety management strategies in health professions' simulation training: a review of the literature

Jeanette Ignacio*, Diana Dolmans, Albert Scherpbier, Jan-Joost Rethans, Sally Chan, Sok Ying Liaw

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Introduction Simulation training has been used to teach clinical skills to health profession trainees. Stress and/or anxiety occur in high-acuity scenarios in the clinical environment, and affect clinician performance and patient outcomes. To date, strategies that have been used in conjunction with simulation training for healthcare professionals that address stress management are limited. This paper reports a literature review conducted to explore strategies used with simulations to enhance the ability of health profession trainees in reducing acute stress and/or anxiety during high-acuity clinical events. Methods Databases searched included Scopus, PubMed, CINAHL, Web of Knowledge and Science Direct. The examples of the literature chosen were those published in the English language from January 2005 to March 2015, and were peer-reviewed empirical papers that focused on the strategies addressing stress and/or anxiety during simulation training for healthcare profession trainees. Results Eight studies using various forms of stress/anxiety management strategies with simulations demonstrated varying degrees of effectiveness. Themes that emerged from these eight studies were excessive stress and clinical performance in simulation, emotional training strategies in simulation, and factors contributing to stress and anxiety reduction during simulation. Conclusions Excessive stress and/or anxiety in the clinical setting have been shown to affect performance and could compromise patient outcomes. Health profession training curricula might benefit from a stress/anxiety reduction strategy integrated into the simulation programmes. This review showed that the stress/anxiety management strategies that have been used with simulations, mostly in surgical training, have various degrees of effectiveness.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)42-46
JournalBMJ Simulation & Technology Enhanced Learning
Volume2
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2016

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