Safe Patient Handling and Mobility Training for English-Speaking Nursing Students using Augmented Reality: Prototype and Testing

Patient handling tasks are the biggest risk factor in the development of musculoskeletal injuries among nurses. Nursing students are equally vulnerable and today their education of ‘safe patient handling and mobility’ (SPHM) is shared between the academic and clinical settings. Students often deviate from what was taught in class, upon arrival in the workplace, which may be due to the use of passive learning instructions. While the use of augmented reality (AR) in nursing is in its early stages, benefits include the ability to gain hands-on experience in learning a skill, increased confidence, and instantaneous feedback. This project aims to develop and test 2 AR clinical scenarios to provide SPHM training to 1st year English-minority speaking nursing students enrolled at the Cégep Saint-Hyacinthe. The objectives are to: 1) create the clinical scenarios and algorithms to train students in SPHM, 2) develop the AR-environments, and 3) explore students’ and educators’ experiences using AR for SPHM training. After obtaining ethics approval, a qualitative descriptive design will be used to explore the experiences of a purposive sample of 14 students and 8 nurse educators. Data will be collected in Winter 2022, and transcripts will be content analyzed. Proper SPHM training of nursing students is critical as evidence suggests that they are developing lower back pain during their 1st year of training. There is potential in using AR for SPHM skill training of students, nurses, and other healthcare workers, and this approach should be integrated in healthcare organization to reduce injuries.