Abstract
Poor preparation of nurses, regarding learning disabilities can have devastating consequences. High-profile reports and the Nursing and Midwifery Council requirements led this University to introduce Shareville into the undergraduate and postgraduate nursing curriculum. Shareville is a virtual environment developed at Birmingham City University, in which student nurses learn from realistic, problem-based scenarios featuring people with learning disabilities. Following the implementation of the resource an evaluation of both staff and student experience was undertaken.Students reported that problem-based scenarios were sufficiently real and immersive. Scenarios presented previously unanticipated considerations, offering new insights, and giving students the opportunity to practise decision-making in challenging scenarios before encountering them in practice. The interface and the quality of the graphics were criticised, but, this did not interfere with learning. Nine lecturers were interviewed, they generally felt positively towards the resource and identified strengths in terms of blended learning and collaborative teaching.The evaluation contributes to understandings of learning via simulated reality, and identifies process issues that will inform the development of further resources and their roll-out locally, and may guide other education providers in developing and implementing resources of this nature. There was significant parity between lecturers' expectations of students' experience of Shareville.
Highlights
Learning disability is a subject area relevant to all fields of practice of nurse education
This paper aims to discuss the implementation of Shareville in the undergraduate and postgraduate pre-registration nursing curricula; the choice and development of scenarios; and present findings of the evaluation by students and staff
Shareville helped students to reflect on the decisions they would make in a particular situation and the consequences of these
Summary
Learning disability is a subject area relevant to all fields of practice of nurse education. In a review of the international literature related to the factors impacting upon the care that people with learning disabilities receive, Brown and Kalaitzidis (2013) identified knowledge, skills, communication, identification of specialised needs and client centeredness as areas where nurses are lacking. Lewis and Stenfert-Kroese (2010) identified in a study into attitudes, that unfavourable nurse attitudes impact upon the standard of the healthcare delivered to people with learning disabilities. Such deficits have been exposed in recent years in the UK in high-profile reports (Mencap, 2007; DH, 2012). The subsequent Confidential Inquiry into Premature Deaths of People with Learning Disabilities (Heslop et al, 2013) presents robust evidence that inadequate health care is implicated in people with learning disabilities dying prematurely. Krahn and Fox (2013) reviewed health inequality related learning disability and identified a number of reports that came out in Australia and the USA at around the same time all promoting improved health care for people with learning disabilities
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