Ashley Franklin, PhD, RN, CNE, CHSE-A (corresponding author)
Marian Luctkar-Flude, PhD, RN, CCSNE
As an element of strategic planning and to fulfill part of the organization's mission to be the global leader in the art and science of healthcare simulation, the International Nursing Association for Clinical Simulation and Learning (INACSL) research committee provides a focused list of research priorities every three years. Research priorities serve to focus resources and attention around both known gaps in the literature and emerging areas identified by clinical and academic simulationists, leaders, and stakeholders. Additionally, proposals submitted to the INACSL Debra Spunt research grants program must target one of these research priorities.
In 2015, INACSL first conducted a member survey to gather data about research priorities. Those research priorities helped build an evidence base to guide the practice of simulation-based education and informed the Standards of Best Practice: Simulation℠. Since then, seminal documents including the Reporting Guidelines for Healthcare Simulation Research (Cheng et al., 2016) and several key systematic reviews of the literature have highlighted salient gaps in the literature (Cantrell & Mariani, 2016; Cantrell, Franklin, Leighton, & Carlson, 2017; Doolen et al., 2016; Kim et al., 2016). With these updated resources underpinning the 2020 to 2023 Research Priorities, our goal is to define the most urgent studies needed to operationalize the INACSL vision that simulation and innovation transform lives.
Development of the research priorities was accomplished in several iterations. First, research committee members reviewed results of the 2018 INACSL membership survey. Second, the research committee used the Delphi technique in October 2019 to build consensus. Finally, the INACSL Board of Directors refined the list of priorities in March 2020.
INACSL values efforts towards the scholarship of discovery in the following areas (See Table ). Specific target outcomes are provided to fill gaps in extant research.
Table.
INACSL Research Priorities 2020-2023
| Topic Area | Target Outcomes |
|---|---|
| Advanced Practice Nursing simulation |
|
| Evaluation tools for learner assessment |
|
| Interprofessional simulation |
|
| Patient safety |
|
| Prebriefing |
|
| Psychomotor skill retention |
|
| Ratio of clinical hours to simulation time |
|
| Simulation in practice settings |
|
| Transition to practice |
|
| Virtual reality/augmented reality and serious games in nursing |
|
It must be noted that following the selection of the INACSL 2020 to 2023 research priorities, the global community was battered by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. This ongoing catastrophic event has overwhelmed clinicians and academics in an unprecedented manner. We have been forced to change our practices in clinical, educational and research settings overnight. Thus, it is possible that additional research priorities will emerge in response to our “new normal.” For example, as remote online and virtual simulations are rapidly adopted to replace in person simulations and clinical time, opportunities arise to evaluate these modalities.
Several reviews of the literature and systematic reviews call for more rigorous simulation research. The research committee supports rigorous inquiry into simulation outcomes in the form of randomized control trials, mixed-method approaches, and use of large, heterogeneous samples.
As we plan for and carry out empirical research to inform education, practice, and patient outcomes guided by these research priorities, we will contribute to the INACSL core values of discovery, diversity, and collaboration.
References
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- Cantrell M.A., Mariani B.A. Moving the research base forward in clinical simulation. Clinical Simulation in Nursing. 2016;12(11):1–11. doi: 10.1016/j.ecns.2016.05.005. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
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