The Impact of Game‐Based Teaching on Undergraduate Nursing Students' Learning Satisfaction, Clinical Thinking, Clinical Skills and Anxiety: A Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis

AIM: To evaluate the impact of game-based teaching on undergraduate nursing students' learning satisfaction, clinical thinking, clinical skills, and anxiety. DESIGN: Systematic review and meta-analysis. DATA SOURCES: China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang, Weipu, SinoMed, CINAHL, PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, and Embase. Our systematic literature search was conducted up to 31 October 2024 and included all studies published before this date, with no restrictions on publication year. METHODS: The study quality was appraised using version 1 of the Cochrane risk-of-bias tool and the JBI Critical Appraisal Tools for Quasi-Experimental Studies. A meta-analysis was performed using STATA version 12. RESULTS: 1712 undergraduate nursing students from 19 studies were included. Meta-analysis showed that game-based teaching improved undergraduate nursing students' learning satisfaction, critical thinking, clinical decision-making, and clinical skills. Game-based teaching did not significantly enhance undergraduate nursing students' problem-solving skills. CONCLUSIONS: Our research findings indicated that game-based teaching had more significant potential to enhance undergraduate nursing students' learning satisfaction, critical thinking, clinical decision-making, and clinical skills. However, game-based teaching did not show a substantial advantage in improving problem-solving skills compared to other teaching methods. Limited studies of the effects of game-based teaching on clinical reasoning and anxiety in nursing students cannot be meta-analysed. Future studies could improve how game-based learning is designed to support undergraduate nursing students' development of these competencies. IMPACT: This study explores the effects of game-based teaching in nursing education and finds that it promotes learning satisfaction, critical thinking, clinical decision-making, and clinical skills in undergraduate nursing students, while having no significant effect on problem-solving skills. Game-based teaching can be a functional pedagogical approach to guide nursing educators to improve learning outcomes for undergraduate nursing students. PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION: Inapplicable.