TeamSTEPPS®-based teamwork training through an escape room experience: A mixed research study

Abstract

Introduction

The Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety (TeamSTEPPS®) programme has been shown to improve teamwork among critical care professionals. The escape room as an educational strategy is effective for the learning process of professionals according to recent evidence.

Objectives

To analyse the degree of satisfaction and explore the perceptions of intensive care nurses after an escape room experience based on the TeamSTEPPS® programme.

Methods

Cross-sectional descriptive and phenomenological study using a mixed methodology. A specific and adapted satisfaction survey was applied to the participants of the escape room, including at the end an open-ended question for them to make comments and thus analyse their perceptions of the experience. A thematic content analysis of the comments was carried out using the interpretative paradigm. Quantitative and qualitative data were analysed using IBM SPSS Statistics™ 29.0 and ATLAS.ti 24™ respectively.

Results

Fifty-five nursing professionals from different intensive care units in Spain participated, with a median age of 34 years (RIC = 12) and 9 years of experience in intensive care (RIC = 11), most of them being women (89.1%). The participants expressed high overall satisfaction with the activity, with a median of 47 points out of 50 (RIC = 4). Three main categories with their respective subcategories emerged from their comments: learning through the escape room (learning new tools; fun way to learn); usefulness of TeamSTEPPS® strategies (communication skills, patient safety and teamwork); implementation in clinical practice (applicable strategies and ease of implementation).

Conclusions

The escape room can be a dynamic, interactive, engaging, and fun way to promote teamwork training and education in intensive care nurses through the TeamSTEPPS® training programme.