A scoping review will be carried out, which involves establishing the main concepts and their limits of a given area of research interest [18]. This study considers publications on the teaching-learning process for nursing in clinical simulation, high- and medium-fidelity simulation guides, and drug administration processes. The 5 phases proposed by Arksey and O’Malley [19] will be followed to carry out the review: (1) identifying the research question; (2) identifying relevant studies; (3) study selection; (4) charting the data; and (5) collating, summarizing, and reporting results.

This study represents the largest such investigation conducted as of January 2023 when the protocol was registered on the Open Science Framework under the identifier p4ays.

Full-text articles published on the central theme of the study, including postgraduate theses, studies using different quantitative methodologies, mixed methods studies, and systematic reviews, will be eligible for inclusion in the review. Articles published from 2010 to 2024 involving nursing student populations will be considered eligible. In addition, articles written in English and Spanish are considered. Dissertation-type documents, book chapters, editorials, abstracts, and articles focused on clinical simulation in nursing professionals will be excluded.

The databases available at the Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia (OVID Medicina y Enfermería, Science Direct, Sage Journals, Proquest Psychology Database, Proquest Social Science Database, Proquest UK & Ireland Database, Psycarticles, Redalyc, and Dialnet) and databases such as CINAHL, Scielo, and PubMed will be searched for relevant articles.

The Population (or Participants)-Concept-Context framework recommended by the Joanna Briggs Institute [19] will be followed to identify the main concepts to orient the search strategy, which are summarized in Textbox 1.

To achieve standardization of search terms, the article’s keywords will be selected from the Descritores em Ciências da Saúde (DeCS) website for the descriptors in Spanish [20] and from Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) for the descriptors in English [21], which are presented in Table 1.

The search will begin in the databases available in the university library and then the literature review will be expanded to other open access databases. The compilation will be carried out in two stages.

The first stage involves title and abstract selection, which will be carried out by 2 reviewers independently considering the inclusion exclusion criteria. In this first stage, the selected keywords will be put to the test to verify that the articles that respond to the proposed theme are adequately recovered with these terms.

In the second stage, the full text of the articles selected in the first phase will be read by 2 reviewers independently and then the results obtained will be contrasted. Any disagreement between the 2 reviewers will be resolved by a third reviewer.

The extracted data will be organized in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, including the following aspects: title, bibliographic source, objective of the study, country of origin, type of study, design, evaluated social skills, simulation scenario, and level of the students.

Subsequently, a qualitative thematic analysis will be performed by 5 independent reviewers to offer an overview of the literature with the aim of identifying similarities, contrasts among authors, and contributions in the aspects of social skills described in nursing students. Because this is a scoping review, it will encompass many types of evidence and therefore it is not considered pertinent to apply bias control to the sources of information or the results of individual studies [22].

The characteristics of the selected articles related to socioemotional skills mediated by clinical simulation as part of the teaching-learning process for nursing education will be described in detail. The data will be presented using summary tables and grouped figures.

In accordance with current international regulations [23,24], this project does not require approval from an ethics committee, as the research does not involve the collection of new data from humans, does not present any risks to participants, and is based on the analysis of secondary data from previously published research.

The article selection process will be summarized using a PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews) flowchart [22], as shown in Figure 1.

A table will be developed to summarize the main characteristics of the selected articles for the research objective, including the country where the study was conducted, design, and identified communication skills. The findings of this scoping review aim to focus on variables within the academic environment that, when related with the clinical simulation experience, may determine the outcomes of student learning. The working hypothesis posited is that students who experience greater satisfaction or possess better communication skills will also demonstrate superior performance during high-fidelity simulation activities.

We will use a narrative approach for data extraction, including descriptions of author characteristics, year of publication, study design, objective, sample size, country, level of education, type of clinical simulation, and categorization by themes. The purpose is to consolidate knowledge about the study phenomenon. Toward this end, the 5 reviewers will apply criteria for critical reading to evaluate the evidence [25]. In case of any disagreement regarding theme categorization, resolution will be achieved through consensus among the reviewers.

Medium- and high-fidelity clinical simulation is a learning tool for technical capabilities and generates response patterns in students that can influence the acquisition of the socioemotional skills necessary for the adequate performance of nursing students in the real environment [26]. Social skills influence the academic and clinical performance of the student in training, complementing preparation for real-world scenarios.

We predict identifying a relationship between exposure to clinical simulation and the improvement of skills such as communication, self-confidence, and problem-solving, along with an increase in satisfaction perception.

The most relevant results will be contrasted considering the stated objective and knowledge gaps. Key aspects will also be compared with other reviews addressing related topics such as communication, self-efficacy, and self-confidence. Skills described by other authors that were not considered in the initial literature review will also be mentioned.

Limitations related to the omission of gray literature or documents written in languages other than Spanish and English will be discussed, and recommendations for conducting future research will be proposed.

The main limitation is the lack of evaluation of the quality of the articles that will be selected; however, Arskey and O’Malley [18] specify that a scoping review does not aim to assess the quality of the evidence but rather to answer the research question. Additionally, there are limited studies on medium- and high-fidelity clinical simulation in nursing students available to date.

In accordance with the findings, the most significant results will be outlined. Providing adequate nursing care involves knowledge of equipment, advanced health care practices, and advanced technical capabilities. Educational institutions are responsible for including learning experiences in controlled environments such as medium- and high-fidelity simulation to ensure the acquisition of technical capabilities as well as socioemotional skills. Recognizing and managing emotions is necessary to provide adequate care for users of health care services and for the increased effectiveness of professionals.