The Development of an Intramuscular Injection Simulation for Nursing Students

Intramuscular (IM) injections are preferred over subcutaneous injections for administering medicine such as epinephrine and vaccines as the muscle tissue contains an increased vascular supply that provides ideal absorption of the drug being administered. However, administering an IM injection requires clinical judgment when choosing the injection site, understanding the relevant anatomy and physiology as well as the principles and techniques for administering an IM injection. Therefore, it is essential to learn and perform IM injections using injection simulators to practice the skill before administering to a real patient. Current IM injection simulators either favor realism at the expense of standardization or are expensive but do not provide a realistic experience. Therefore, it is imperative to develop an inexpensive but realistic intramuscular injection simulator that can be used to train nursing students so that they can be prepared for when they enter the clinical setting. This technical report aims to provide an overview of the development of an inexpensive and realistic deltoid simulator geared to teach nursing students the skill of IM injections. After development, the IM simulators were tested and validated by practicing nurses. An 18-item survey was administered to the nurses, and results indicated positive feedback about the realism of the simulator, in comparison to previous models used, such as the Wallcur (R) PRACTI-Injecta Pads (Wallcur LLC, San Diego, CA). Feedback to improve the density of the simulator as well as the shape and size to make it a more realistic experience was provided.