One Simulated Skills Checkoff is Still Not Enough: Foley Catheterization Skill Performance Among Undergraduate Nursing Students

Highlights

Retaining competent skill performance is difficult for nursing students.
In this study participants had difficulty maintaining asepsis during a random skill assessment.
Faculty should provide continued skills practice opportunities for students.

Although effective skill performance improves patient safety, nursing students struggle to maintain safe skill performance after initially learning a psychomotor skill. Ten undergraduate Bachelor's in Nursing students who had been checked off on Foley catheterization were asked to complete the skill and their performance was assessed by a single researcher using a standardized checklist. Although all of the participants successfully inserted the catheter into the bladder, all of them also contaminated the sterile field during the procedure. These participants did not successfully perform the skill on this random skills assessment. Faculty should provide opportunities for additional skills practice after checkoffs and supervise students closely in the clinical setting to ensure safe skill performance.

Michael D. Aldridge PhD, RN, CNE

Associate Professor of Nursing, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO, USA

Source: Michael D. Aldridge. One Simulated Skills Checkoff is Still Not Enough: Foley Catheterization Skill Performance Among Undergraduate Nursing Students. Clinical Simulation in Nursing. Volume 89. 2024. 101503, ISSN 1876-1399.

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