214 - The use of the Escape Room at the SOBECC Symposium - impact assessment and evaluation

Description: An escape room is a type of adventure game in which a group of people are "locked" in one or more themed rooms and must work together to solve a series of riddles, puzzles, and challenges within a limited time, usually 60 minutes. The ultimate goal is to successfully "escape" the room or complete a specific mission.
This summary explores the application of escape rooms as an innovative tool in the professional development of nurses. We address how this playful and immersive methodology can be strategically used to enhance critical skills, such as decision-making, interprofessional communication, and teamwork, in a simulated and safe environment. We highlight the practical impacts of this approach on continuing education for nurses, investigating how experience in escape rooms can translate into significant improvements in patient safety, care efficiency, and responsiveness to complex scenarios in the real clinical setting. The strategy was used at the International Symposium on Sterilization and Infection Control, held by SOBECC in São Paulo in October 2024.
"Invisible Extermination" was the name chosen for the SOBECC Symposium escape room, and we based our escape room on our experience at the 2023 AORN Conference in Nashville. We prepared an area measuring approximately 20 square meters, where up to ten people could watch and play the escape room at a time. The goal was to discover how a patient acquired a surgical site infection, connecting the infection process to inadequate care of surgical equipment in the CSD, going through each step after discovering the enigma corresponding to the stage to be overcome, from cleaning, packaging, sterilization, and storage of the surgical box.
The activity was guided by process assistants who guided the players through the challenges, timing the time spent on each step. The times were recorded, and at the end of the conference, the team with the best time was awarded with SOBECC and infection control literature.
Participants also evaluated the activity, rating their experience, and an impact analysis was collected at the end of each escape room session. The results showed that participants reported 85% satisfaction with the escape room experience, 87% would recommend the escape room to their colleagues, 69% considered the topics covered in the escape room relevant and important to their practice, and stated: "Dynamic, interactive, and engaging method."
"Great dynamic, could be repeated at other events."
"I found it super interesting and a very engaging way to teach."
We believe the strategy motivated the conference attendees and engaged participants, sparking interest in the methodology, which is not yet widely used in our context. Many stated the possibility of replicating the model in their work environments and as an active teaching methodology. We concluded that the Simposio was an excellent opportunity to apply the escape room methodology and should continue to challenge our participants in future editions of the event. We concluded that the escape room can have diverse applications, motivating nurses and educators to adopt the method in their settings.