Abstract

Training of healthcare providers, throughout their undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate includes a wide range of simulation based training modalities. Serious gaming has become an important training modality besides other simulation systems and serious gaming based educational modules have been implemented into the educational curriculum of nursing training. The aim of this study was to investigate whether functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) for monitoring hemodynamic response of the prefrontal cortex can be used as an additional tool for evaluating performances of nursing students in the intravenous catheterization training. The twenty three participants were recruited for this study. The novice group consisted of fifteen untrained nursing students and the expert group had eight senior nurses. Training performances of students evaluated over, pre and posttest scores and fNIRS measurements from task trainer application. Novice group completed the protocol on four sessions on four different days. On day 1 and day 30, they performed on task trainer procedure. On day 2 and day 7, participants of the novice group were trained only by using the Virtual Intravenous Simulator Module. The expert group only performed on the task trainer on days 1 and 30. Participants’ performance scores and fNIRS results of the 1st and 30th day training sessions were compared. fNIRS measurements revealed significant changes in prefrontal cortex (PFC) region oxygenation of novice group, while their post-test scores increased. Our findings suggests that, fNIRS could be used as an objective, supportive assessment techniques for effective monitor of expertise development of the nursing trainees.