Available online 16 March 2024

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Drama based workshops in nursing education embedded in the undergraduate adult nursing modules across all years of the curriculum.

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The drama-based workshops use techniques from physical theatre, aligned to clinical simulation learning outcomes with an emphasis on “Care.”

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Drama based workshops enhanced the nursing students self-awareness, empathy, communication skills and self-care within the context of care in nursing.

AbstractBackground

This paper provides an overview of an innovation using drama-based workshops which have been embedded into undergraduate nursing curriculum in a Higher Education Institute in the United Kingdom (UK). Drama techniques are gaining increasing recognition in nursing education particularly around the way in which they can support the learning of communication and interpersonal skills in a multi-sensory approach.

Innovation

The drama-based workshops have become embedded in the nursing curriculum alongside nursing clinical simulations. The workshops use techniques from physical theatre with an emphasis on “care” that are aligned to the specific learning outcomes of the clinical simulation.

Implications

The workshops were developed across all years of the curriculum in response to student feedback which demonstrated how drama can enable students to develop self-awareness, empathy, communication skills and self-care.

Conclusion

The Drama based workshops have enabled students the opportunity to explore and reflect on their own interpersonal communication as well as the embodiment of care to their patients, colleagues and themselves.

Section snippetsContext

A drama-based approach is one that uses exercises taken from the education of drama students (Dawson & Lee, 2018). The integration of such approaches into nursing education both in academic and clinical settings, is being used to enable learning in areas such as the nurturing empathy, professionalism, confidence and communication (Kerr & MacDonald 1997; Lightblau, 2014; Arveklev et al., 2018). Evidence indicates drama-based approaches are often being adopted in the early stages of undergraduate

How Drama fits Into Learning in Nursing

Adult learners are more likely to be receptive to learning and for that learning to be retained when multiple senses are engaged using a multisensory perspective to remember and learn (Broek et al., 2023). Such is achieved when learners are moved to a new understanding by engaging emotions, self-reflection, hearing stories, and being in touch with thoughts and experiences (Quak, 2015). Further, recognizing how these different sensory modalities interact and affect each other can in turn

Development of the Drama-based Workshops in the Nursing Curriculum

The development of the workshops came from an interprofessional collaboration between academics at the School of Drama and School of Nursing: Simulated Learning and Clinical Skills team at the same UK Higher Education Institution (HEI). The collaboration was formed due to a shared interest in health and drama within education. The drama lead at the time was developing a physical theatre production with an emphasis on care using physical actions, movement, expression, and music rather than

Funding and Ethics Approval

To ensure this was not a standalone, one-off project, funding was required to embed it long term into the nursing curriculum. The funding pays for drama academics who work in other Higher Education Institutions and Drama companies to continue the develop and deliver the workshops. The costs were reduced initially for the first year of the project because all of the academics involved worked at two schools within the same HEI. After this time, the drama expert moved to a different HEI and

Future Implications and Potential Limitations

The funding for projects such as the one we have presented can require repeated applications for funding. This can be a burdensome and daunting aspect of initiating projects of this nature; however, the fact that we were successful in competitive bids and now have substantive funding, suggests growing interest, value and support in arts-based approaches to healthcare professional education.

Addressing these challenges through funding applications has enabled an unusually sustained drama-based

Conclusion

Despite the challenges, we have highlighted that it is possible for drama-based approaches to become an integral and sustained component of the nursing curriculum. It is essential the drama-based workshops are designed and led by drama specialists with nursing academics facilitating alongside to ensure the link to nursing care in healthcare settings. The collaboration in the design and facilitation of the multi-sensory drama workshops ensured the context, learning outcomes and relationship to

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Sally Richardson: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing – review & editing. Dr. Alex Mermikides: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing – original draft. Terry Firth: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing – review & editing. Sara Donetto: Writing – original draft.

Declaration of competing interest

None.

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