• Don Johnson and Sabine Johnson.
• US Army Graduate Program in Anaesthesia Nursing, Fort Sam Houston, Texas.
• US Army Med Dep J. 2014 Jan 1:59-64.

BackgroundMilitary healthcare personnel, including nurse anesthetists, must have the knowledge and skills to care for the extensive, severe injuries incurred on the battlefield. No studies have compared the 2 teaching strategies of using the human patient simulator (HPS) and a CD-ROM in caring for combat injuries relative to critical thinking and performance using nurse anesthesia participants.MethodsA prospective, pretest-posttest experimental, mixed design (within and between) was used to determine if there were statistically significant differences in HPS and CD-ROM educational strategies relative to caring for patients who have trauma. Two instruments were used: critical thinking, which consisted of multiple-choice questions; and a combat performance instrument that measured ability to care for patients.ResultsA repeated analysis of variance and a least significant difference post-hoc test were used to analyze the data. The HPS group performed better than the CD-ROM and control groups relative to performance (P=.000) but not on critical thinking (P=.239). There was no difference between the CD-ROM and control group (P=.171) on the combat performance instrument.ConclusionIn this study, the HPS method of instruction was a more effective method of teaching than the CD-ROM approach.

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