Pediatric respiratory distress is the most common reason for pediatric hospitalizations in the first year of life, with bronchiolitis a leading cause of critical care admissions and responsible for 66 000 to 199 000 annual deaths worldwide. Respiratory assessment skills development requires repeated clinical exposure, yet for various reasons bedside skills have declined in the past 2 decades.

Raab and colleagues assessed the effectiveness of virtual reality (VR) simulation to teach clinical assessment skills to new graduate nurses. They found that, compared with nurses who received standard training, nurses in the VR group were more likely to

  • Recognize impending respiratory failure,

  • Identify respiratory distress without impending respiratory failure, and

  • Consider a patient’s mental status when assessing respiratory failure.

Study findings were significant for the VR group at both 3 months and 6 months after intervention. Although further research is needed to explore possible skill decay, the results support use of...

You do not currently have access to this content.