Educational Value of a Leadership-Focused High-Fidelity Simulation Scenario in Undergraduate Nursing Education: A Single-Group Educational Intervention Study

Aim/Objective: To evaluate undergraduate nursing students’ perceptions of the educational design, debriefing quality, satisfaction, and self-confidence associated with a leadership-focused high-fidelity simulation scenario involving the management of a sharps-injury event. Background: High-fidelity simulation provides structured opportunities for undergraduate nursing students to support learning of communication, prioritization, decision-making, teamwork, and leadership-related behaviors. Design: Single-group educational intervention study using post-intervention learner-reported outcomes. Methods: Fourth-year undergraduate nursing students from a public university in Brazil participated in a 15-min leadership-focused high-fidelity simulation involving the management of a sharps-injury event. After the simulation, participants completed validated instruments assessing simulation design, satisfaction and self-confidence in learning, educational practices, and debriefing. Descriptive statistics and exploratory Pearson correlation analyses were performed using complete data from all participants. Results: Fifty-six students participated in the simulation. Overall, participants reported favorable perceptions of the simulation design, satisfaction with learning, self-confidence, educational practices, and debriefing. Exploratory analyses showed positive correlations between satisfaction and active learning, high expectations, and debriefing quality, as well as between self-confidence and active learning, debriefing, and high expectations. Conclusions: Undergraduate nursing students perceived the leadership-focused high-fidelity simulation scenario as realistic, reflective, and educationally valuable. The scenario may represent a useful pedagogical strategy for introducing leadership-related behaviors in undergraduate nursing education. However, because the findings were based on self-reported perceptions collected after a single simulation activity, they should not be interpreted as evidence of objective leadership-related behaviors or transfer of learning to clinical practice.