A telenursing simulation to assess nursing students’ readiness for practice in screening adolescents for depression

Mental health diagnoses have become prevalent among pediatric patients, leading to the enhanced need for undergraduate nursing students to be competent and comfortable screening and caring for these individuals. Using video-conferencing software as a simulated, telenursing, virtual platform, nursing learners engaged in a simulated scenario with a standardized patient (SP) acting as an adolescent experiencing clinically significant depressive and anxiety symptoms. This simulation was implemented to improve the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of learners in identifying and caring for adolescents experiencing these symptoms. Learners reported a perceived increase in knowledge (M = 3.45 out of 5, SD = 0.93) and self-reported a significant increase in confidence to care for patients reporting depressive symptoms postsimulation (M = 3.49, SD = 0.50) to postsimulation (M = 3.67, SD = 0.52; t (196)= -5.14, p < .001, d = -0.37). Telenursing simulation in undergraduate nursing education introduces nursing students to the principles of telenursing best practices while aligning the nursing curriculum with the American Association of Colleges of Nursing’s Essentials and enhancing practice readiness for the future nursing workforce.