The objectively structured clinical examination for safe nursing care: a scoping review

Abstract

Introduction: The Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) has been utilized as an educational strategy in the training of health professionals. Its application in this context can enhance the development of both technical and non-technical skills, as well as safety in care.Objective: To map the patient safety skills developed by nursing professionals through the Objective Structured Clinical Examination as found in the literature.Method: This is a scoping review structured according to the JBI framework and guided by the Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews. The review is registered in the Open Science Framework with the DOI number 10.17605/OSF.IO/MESC3. A search was conducted in the following databases: PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), the CAPES Catalog of Theses and Dissertations, and Google Scholar, between February and April 2023.Results: Twenty-five studies were selected, demonstrating that the OSCE is used to train nursing teams with a focus on safety skills such as communication, teamwork, decision-making, clinical care, and situational safety awareness.Conclusion: The OSCE has been used as an educational strategy to improve the quality and safety of care. It is applied from primary care to high-complexity settings to evaluate professional skills that are technical, attitudinal, or behavioral in nature. The use of OSCE aids in the development of professional skills related to patient safety.