Prospects of Simulation Use by Nurse Educators in the Training of Student Nurses in Fako Division, Cameroon

Prospects of simulations among nurse educators depend on the knowledge, availability, affordability and applicability of the simulations in teaching nursing students. In terms of knowledge, the types of simulations, advantages, disadvantages and stage of use determine how well or how bad the applicability will be. Teaching and educating nursing students require the appropriate use of simulation, hence a good knowledge of the types of simulations, determinants of their use, importance of simulations and prospects with regards to background information are a vital pre-requisite. Experience has shown training and education of nurses and midwives in the study area depends on theory and clinical practice but the use of simulation is too limited. Even when the simulations are available, the high quality simulations are lacking despite the fact that they are very necessary in the training and education programmes. Based on this, the main objective of the study was to assess nurse educators' knowledge on the types, determinants, importance and prospects of simulations in the teaching of nursing and midwifery students. The results have demonstrated the use of low quality simulations in the study area though with high prospects for higher quality following software applications. It is therefore recommended that software medium and high quality simulations be made available by training institutions for consultation by staff and students.