PediatricNCT07752537
Improving Pediatric Nursing Undergraduate Education: An Escape Room on Dehydration in Children
A study testing Escape room educational training in people with Pediatric and Nursing Student, run by Gazi University.
Trial summary
Nursing education aims to equip students with the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors required for safe and effective professional practice. However, traditional teacher-centered approaches are often insufficient for developing competencies such as critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making… Read more about this study
- Who is it for?
- Ages 20 to 32 yearsHealthy volunteers can take part
- Conditions the study is for
- Pediatric, Nursing Student, Escape Room
- What is being tested?
- Escape room educational training
- Could I receive a placebo?
- No, everyone receives an active treatment
- How many people
- 84 participants
- Where
- No sites listed yet
- Study dates
- 1 Sep 2026to 1 Nov 2026
- Phase
- Interventional
- Are there results?
- Not yet: the study is under way
Key requirements
Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.
- Ages 20 to 32 years
- All sexes
- Healthy volunteers accepted
- Adult
Who may be able to join
- • Being a 3rd-year nursing student,
- • Having a GPA above 2,
- • Completing theoretical courses,
- • Completing practical courses,
- • Agreeing to participate in the study,
- • Completing the escape room practice.
Who cannot join
- • Retaking the Pediatric Nursing course,
- • Having a high school, associate's, or bachelor's degree in a health-related field,
- • Having prior escape room experience.
About this study
Nursing education aims to equip students with the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors required for safe and effective professional practice. However, traditional teacher-centered approaches are often insufficient for developing competencies such as critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making, communication, and teamwork.Consequently, innovative student-centered teaching strategies are increasingly being integrated into nursing education.Game-based learning is one such strategy that enhances engagement, motivation, active participation, and collaborative learning. Among GBL approaches, the educational escape room combines gamification with problem-solving by requiring students to work collaboratively under time constraints to solve realistic clinical scenarios. This method promotes active learning while strengthening communication, teamwork, leadership, and clinical reasoning skills. Educational escape rooms have been successfully implemented in several areas of nursing education, including women's health, pediatric care, geriatric nursing, cardiovascular diseases, clinical skills, teamwork, and leadership. Despite these developments, evidence regarding their use in pediatric nursing education remains limited.Dehydration is one of the most common pediatric health problems and requires nurses to accurately assess hydration status, recognize clinical findings, and implement appropriate nursing interventions. Competence in dehydration management is therefore essential for pediatric nursing students. To date, no published study has evaluated an educational escape room designed specifically to teach pediatric dehydration management.
This study aims to examine the effectiveness of an educational escape room implemented during a pediatric nursing laboratory simulation on nursing students' hydration knowledge, teamwork, and anxiety levels. It is expected that this innovative educational approach will enhance students' knowledge acquisition and teamwork skills while reducing anxiety during learning.
Read the detailed description
Pediatric nursing education aims to train nurses who can respond safely and effectively to the complex and rapidly changing healthcare needs of children. Accordingly, nursing students are expected to possess not only theoretical knowledge but also clinical reasoning, rapid decision-making, effective communication, teamwork, and psychomotor skills. Therefore, it is recommended that undergraduate nursing education be supported by active and student-centered learning approaches that develop students' critical thinking, problem-solving, clinical decision-making, and teamwork skills. While traditional teaching methods are effective in transferring basic knowledge, they may be limited in developing students' ability to integrate and utilize their clinical knowledge and skills. In contrast, active learning approaches are reported to increase knowledge transfer, clinical performance, and learning retention.Game-based learning, which is among the active learning methods, has been widely used in nursing education in recent years. Process, is reported to increase student participation and motivation in learning, support critical thinking, problem-solving, and knowledge retention, and reduce anxiety related to learning. Furthermore, game-based learning contributes to the development of professional skills necessary for pediatric care, such as communication, leadership, and teamwork.
Educational escape rooms, one of the innovative applications of game-based learning, are a student-centered teaching approach that integrates gamification principles with problem-solving-based learning. In these applications, structured around realistic clinical scenarios, students complete tasks as a team by analyzing clinical clues within a specific time frame; during this process, they simultaneously use communication, clinical reasoning, and decision-making skills. Structured feedback sessions allow students to evaluate their experiences and reinforce their learning.
Recent studies have shown that educational escape rooms have positive effects on nursing students' knowledge level, clinical reasoning, teamwork, and learning satisfaction. Systematic reviews also reveal that this method facilitates the transfer of theoretical knowledge to clinical practice and improves problem-solving and clinical decision-making skills. Although educational escape rooms have been implemented in various nursing fields such as women's health, child health, geriatrics, cardiovascular care, clinical skills, teamwork, and leadership, evidence regarding applications focusing on dehydration management in children is quite limited. Dehydration is a common and significant clinical problem in childhood that can lead to serious morbidity and mortality if not managed properly (source). Therefore, nurses need to have sufficient knowledge and skills to recognize early signs of dehydration, assess the degree of fluid loss, and plan appropriate nursing interventions. However, nursing students have limited opportunities for clinical experience to develop these skills. The literature lacks a study that develops and evaluates the effectiveness of an educational escape room application focusing on the assessment and management of dehydration in children for nursing students. This study, planned to address this research gap, aims to evaluate the effect of an educational escape room, developed within the scope of pediatric nursing laboratory practice, on nursing students' hydration knowledge level, teamwork, and situational anxiety levels.
- Conditions
- Pediatric, Nursing Student, Escape Room
- Being tested
- Escape room educational training
What participants receive
What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.
Escape room educational trainingOther
The escape room educational training consisted of a game-based learning activity designed around a pediatric dehydration management scenario. Working in small teams, nursing students completed a series of sequential clinical tasks and puzzles requiring assessment of hydration status, identification of dehydration severity, selection of appropriate nursing interventions, and clinical decision-making within a predetermined time limit. A structured debriefing session followed the activity to reinforce learning objectives and facilitate reflective learning.
| Study group | Role | What they receive |
|---|---|---|
| Intervention Group | Experimental | Not described Receives: Other: Escape room educational training |
| Control Group | No intervention | Not described |
What is being measured
The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.
Hydration Knowledge Quiz
Developed by researchers using literature to assess hydration status in the pediatric age group (source). The questions are in a 5-option multiple-choice format. There are a total of 10 questions. The questions will be sent to 10 academic experts in the field to evaluate content validity. After the test, Kuder-Richardson 20 (KR-20) value, item difficulty, and discrimination will be analyzed to test its reliability.
Measured: Baseline (immediately before the intervention) and immediately after completion of the educational escape room (approximately 60 minutes later).
State Anxiety Scale
State anxiety will be assessed using the State Anxiety Scale (SAS), which measures participants' current level of anxiety in response to a specific situation. The scale consists of 20 items rated on a 4-point Likert scale, with higher total scores indicating higher levels of state anxiety. The scale will be administered immediately before and after the educational escape room intervention to evaluate changes in students' situational anxiety associated with the learning activity.
Measured: Baseline (immediately before the intervention) and immediately after completion of the educational escape room (approximately 60 minutes later).
Collaboration Scale
Adapted into Turkish by Yerlikaya and Doğruyol (2020) based on the Cooperation and Competitiveness Scale, this is an 11-item, 5-point Likert-type scale. Scores on the scale range from 11 to 55, with higher scores indicating stronger cooperative tendencies. The scale is divided into three sub-dimensions: emotions, behaviors, and beliefs. The original 16-item scale underwent validity and reliability testing during its adaptation into Turkish (Yılmaz and Bayram, 2025; Yerlikaya and Doğruyol, 2020).
Measured: Baseline (immediately before the intervention) and immediately after completion of the educational escape room (approximately 60 minutes later).
Gameful Experience (GAMEX) Gaming Experience Scale
The scale developed by Eppman et al. (2018) is used to evaluate the gaming experience. This five-point Likert-type scale, which can be completed by students or researchers, consists of six sub-dimensions (enjoyment, engagement, creative thinking, influence, absence of adverse effects, and dominance) and 27 items. Each item is scored between 1 and 5, with a minimum score of 27 and a maximum score of 135 for the entire scale. In the original version of the scale, the Cronbach's alpha value for the entire scale is 0.89, while the Cronbach's alpha values for the sub-dimensions range from 0.84 to 0.96. In the Turkish validity and reliability study, the total Cronbach's alpha value was 0.93, and the Cronbach's alpha values for the sub-dimensions ranged from 0.67 to 0.92 (Dönmez, Çalık, Kabal and Kapucu, 2024; Eppmann, Bekk and Klein, 2018).
Measured: Immediately after completion of the educational escape room (same day)
Timeline
From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.
- First posted7 Aug 2026
- Study start1 Sep 2026 (estimated)
- Primary completion1 Nov 2026 (estimated)
- Study completion1 Nov 2026 (estimated)
Resources
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govThe registry entry this page is built from, with its full change history.
- Other trials for PediatricStudies of the same condition, open and under way.
- More trials run by Gazi UniversityThe sponsor's other registered studies.
- What the trial phases meanHow a treatment moves from first tests in people to approval.
More details
For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.
Study design
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Phase N/A
- Primary purpose
- Other
- Allocation
- Randomised
- Intervention model
- Parallel groups
- Masking
- Single blind
- Who is masked
- Participant
- Enrolment
- 84 participants (estimated)
Sponsor and investigators
- Lead sponsor
- Gazi University
- Sponsor type
- University, hospital or other
- Responsible party
- Principal investigator, Rukiye Çelik, Gazi University
IDs, dates and publications
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT07752537
- Sponsor's protocol ID
- 2026-2026
- Status last verified
- Aug 2026
- First submitted
- 14 Jul 2026
- Last updated
- 7 Aug 2026
- Results posted
- No
- Data monitoring committee
- No
- FDA-regulated drug
- No
- FDA-regulated device
- No
Study at a glance
From the registry record, last updated by the sponsor on 7 Aug 2026. Recruitment status is as the sponsor reported it: confirm with the study team.
- Official title
- Improving Pediatric Nursing Undergraduate Education: An Escape Room on Dehydration in Children
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT07752537
- Acronym / sponsor ID
- 2026-2026
- Conditions
- Pediatric, Nursing Student, Escape Room
- Study type
- Interventional
- Recruitment status
- Not yet recruiting
- Enrolment
- 84 participants (estimated)
- Lead sponsor
- Gazi UniversityUniversity, hospital or other
- Study start
- 1 Sep 2026 (estimated)
- Primary completion
- 1 Nov 2026 (estimated)
- Study completion
- 1 Nov 2026 (estimated)
- First posted
- 7 Aug 2026 (actual)
- Results
- Not posted in the source record
Clinical summary
The research question as the sponsor registered it. This describes what the study plans to test, not what it found.
Nursing education aims to equip students with the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors required for safe and effective professional practice. However, traditional teacher-centered approaches are often insufficient for developing competencies such as critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making, communication, and teamwork.Consequently, innovative student-centered teaching strategies are increasingly being integrated into nursing education.Game-based learning is one such strategy that enhances engagement, motivation, active participation, and collaborative learning. Among GBL approaches, the educational escape room combines gamification with problem-solving by requiring students to work collaboratively under time constraints to solve realistic clinical scenarios. This method promotes active learning while strengthening communication, teamwork, leadership, and clinical reasoning skills. Educational escape rooms have been successfully implemented in several areas of nursing education, including women's health, pediatric care, geriatric nursing, cardiovascular diseases, clinical skills, teamwork, and leadership. Despite these developments, evidence regarding their use in pediatric nursing education remains limited.Dehydration is one of the most common pediatric health problems and requires nurses to accurately assess hydration status, recognize clinical findings, and implement appropriate nursing interventions. Competence in dehydration management is therefore essential for pediatric nursing students. To date, no published study has evaluated an educational escape room designed specifically to teach pediatric dehydration management.
This study aims to examine the effectiveness of an educational escape room implemented during a pediatric nursing laboratory simulation on nursing students' hydration knowledge, teamwork, and anxiety levels. It is expected that this innovative educational approach will enhance students' knowledge acquisition and teamwork skills while reducing anxiety during learning.
Detailed description
Pediatric nursing education aims to train nurses who can respond safely and effectively to the complex and rapidly changing healthcare needs of children. Accordingly, nursing students are expected to possess not only theoretical knowledge but also clinical reasoning, rapid decision-making, effective communication, teamwork, and psychomotor skills. Therefore, it is recommended that undergraduate nursing education be supported by active and student-centered learning approaches that develop students' critical thinking, problem-solving, clinical decision-making, and teamwork skills. While traditional teaching methods are effective in transferring basic knowledge, they may be limited in developing students' ability to integrate and utilize their clinical knowledge and skills. In contrast, active learning approaches are reported to increase knowledge transfer, clinical performance, and learning retention.Game-based learning, which is among the active learning methods, has been widely used in nursing education in recent years. Process, is reported to increase student participation and motivation in learning, support critical thinking, problem-solving, and knowledge retention, and reduce anxiety related to learning. Furthermore, game-based learning contributes to the development of professional skills necessary for pediatric care, such as communication, leadership, and teamwork.
Educational escape rooms, one of the innovative applications of game-based learning, are a student-centered teaching approach that integrates gamification principles with problem-solving-based learning. In these applications, structured around realistic clinical scenarios, students complete tasks as a team by analyzing clinical clues within a specific time frame; during this process, they simultaneously use communication, clinical reasoning, and decision-making skills. Structured feedback sessions allow students to evaluate their experiences and reinforce their learning.
Recent studies have shown that educational escape rooms have positive effects on nursing students' knowledge level, clinical reasoning, teamwork, and learning satisfaction. Systematic reviews also reveal that this method facilitates the transfer of theoretical knowledge to clinical practice and improves problem-solving and clinical decision-making skills. Although educational escape rooms have been implemented in various nursing fields such as women's health, child health, geriatrics, cardiovascular care, clinical skills, teamwork, and leadership, evidence regarding applications focusing on dehydration management in children is quite limited. Dehydration is a common and significant clinical problem in childhood that can lead to serious morbidity and mortality if not managed properly (source). Therefore, nurses need to have sufficient knowledge and skills to recognize early signs of dehydration, assess the degree of fluid loss, and plan appropriate nursing interventions. However, nursing students have limited opportunities for clinical experience to develop these skills. The literature lacks a study that develops and evaluates the effectiveness of an educational escape room application focusing on the assessment and management of dehydration in children for nursing students. This study, planned to address this research gap, aims to evaluate the effect of an educational escape room, developed within the scope of pediatric nursing laboratory practice, on nursing students' hydration knowledge level, teamwork, and situational anxiety levels.
Study design
- Primary purpose
- Other
- Allocation
- Randomised
- Intervention model
- Parallel groups
- Masking
- Single blind (participant)
- Number of arms
- 2
| Arm | Type | Receives |
|---|---|---|
| Intervention Group | Experimental | Other: Escape room educational training |
| Control Group | No intervention | – |
Who may qualify
- Ages
- 20 to 32 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Accepted
- Age groups
- Adult
Key inclusion criteria (6 listed)
- • Being a 3rd-year nursing student,
- • Having a GPA above 2,
- • Completing theoretical courses,
- • Completing practical courses,
- • Agreeing to participate in the study,
Key exclusion criteria (3 listed)
- • Retaking the Pediatric Nursing course,
- • Having a high school, associate's, or bachelor's degree in a health-related field,
- • Having prior escape room experience.
Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening; this overview does not establish that a patient qualifies. Full inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Interventions
| Intervention | Type | Arms |
|---|---|---|
| Escape room educational trainingThe escape room educational training consisted of a game-based learning activity designed around a pediatric dehydration management scenario. Working in small teams, nursing students completed a series of sequential clinical tasks and puzzles requiring assessment of hydration status, identification of dehydration severity, selection of appropriate nursing interventions, and clinical decision-making within a predetermined time limit. A structured debriefing session followed the activity to reinforce learning objectives and facilitate reflective learning. | Other | Intervention Group |
Primary outcome
Hydration Knowledge Quiz
Time frame: Baseline (immediately before the intervention) and immediately after completion of the educational escape room (approximately 60 minutes later).
Developed by researchers using literature to assess hydration status in the pediatric age group (source). The questions are in a 5-option multiple-choice format. There are a total of 10 questions. The questions will be sent to 10 academic experts in the field to evaluate content validity. After the test, Kuder-Richardson 20 (KR-20) value, item difficulty, and discrimination will be analyzed to test its reliability.
State Anxiety Scale
Time frame: Baseline (immediately before the intervention) and immediately after completion of the educational escape room (approximately 60 minutes later).
State anxiety will be assessed using the State Anxiety Scale (SAS), which measures participants' current level of anxiety in response to a specific situation. The scale consists of 20 items rated on a 4-point Likert scale, with higher total scores indicating higher levels of state anxiety. The scale will be administered immediately before and after the educational escape room intervention to evaluate changes in students' situational anxiety associated with the learning activity.
Collaboration Scale
Time frame: Baseline (immediately before the intervention) and immediately after completion of the educational escape room (approximately 60 minutes later).
Adapted into Turkish by Yerlikaya and Doğruyol (2020) based on the Cooperation and Competitiveness Scale, this is an 11-item, 5-point Likert-type scale. Scores on the scale range from 11 to 55, with higher scores indicating stronger cooperative tendencies. The scale is divided into three sub-dimensions: emotions, behaviors, and beliefs. The original 16-item scale underwent validity and reliability testing during its adaptation into Turkish (Yılmaz and Bayram, 2025; Yerlikaya and Doğruyol, 2020).
Gameful Experience (GAMEX) Gaming Experience Scale
Time frame: Immediately after completion of the educational escape room (same day)
The scale developed by Eppman et al. (2018) is used to evaluate the gaming experience. This five-point Likert-type scale, which can be completed by students or researchers, consists of six sub-dimensions (enjoyment, engagement, creative thinking, influence, absence of adverse effects, and dominance) and 27 items. Each item is scored between 1 and 5, with a minimum score of 27 and a maximum score of 135 for the entire scale. In the original version of the scale, the Cronbach's alpha value for the entire scale is 0.89, while the Cronbach's alpha values for the sub-dimensions range from 0.84 to 0.96. In the Turkish validity and reliability study, the total Cronbach's alpha value was 0.93, and the Cronbach's alpha values for the sub-dimensions ranged from 0.67 to 0.92 (Dönmez, Çalık, Kabal and Kapucu, 2024; Eppmann, Bekk and Klein, 2018).
Results and safety
This study is still under way. Results are not available in the source record yet.
Research links
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govLast updated by the sponsor 7 Aug 2026.
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Referral and contact
AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals. Contact the study team or a site listed below; they decide who can take part.
The record lists no contact. Use the official record to reach the sponsor.
Questions about this trial
What is this clinical trial studying?
A study testing Escape room educational training in people with Pediatric and Nursing Student, run by Gazi University.
The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.
Who may be eligible to take part?
The sponsor lists 6 inclusion and 3 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.
Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?
The record says: opening soon, as of the sponsor's last update on 7 Aug 2026. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.
What are the possible benefits and risks?
They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.
Are results available for this study?
This study is still under way. Results are not available in the source record yet.
How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?
The record lists no contact. The official record names the sponsor, who can be asked directly. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.
What does the primary outcome measure?
Hydration Knowledge Quiz (time frame: Baseline (immediately before the intervention) and immediately after completion of the educational escape room (approximately 60 minutes later).). The study lists 4 primary outcomes in all. It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.
Where can I read the original study information?
Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?
No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.
How often is this information updated?
AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 7 Aug 2026.