simulation of mental status examination (mse) on skills to interpret findings, self-confidence, and satisfaction with learning among nursing students: a randomized control pilot study

A randomized control pilot study was conducted to investigate the effect of simulation of the mental status examination on skills to interpret findings, level of self-confidence, and satisfaction with learning among nursing students. two nursing colleges were randomly allocated into interventional and control groups. the data has been obtained from the 20 nursing students of each group. audio simulation has been administered to the experimental group and lecture method teaching has been administered to the control group. pre-recorded case scenario audiotapes are used to assess the skills to interpret the alteration in thought, perception, and cognition before the simulation. student satisfaction and self-confidence in learning scale developed by the national league for nurses, washington, is also used in this study. spss-21 was used to analyze the data and paired ‘t-test was done to identify the effectiveness of the simulation.  the results reveal that both the experimental and control group teaching sessions were found to be significant since the p-value is <0.05. however, in the descriptive statistics experimental group students were more satisfied with the learning and felt more self-confident after the simulation-based teaching of the mental status examination. thus, the audio-simulation technique was found useful in teaching the mental status examination.