Investigation of the Effect of Birth Experience With a Wearable Simulated Motherhood Model on Empathic Tendency and Privacy Protection Level: A Randomized Controlled Study

Humanistic care is also conceptualized as the ability to communicate with patients, feel their emotions, meet their needs, and develop harmonious therapeutic relationships. Humanistic care is the essence and connotation of the care process. But developing a sense of humanistic care is quite difficult. Despite emphasizing humanistic care in midwifery education and making great efforts, its integration into professional practice is still not at the desired level .

Empathy refers to the tendency to recognize, help, and respond to other people's experiences and emotions. Empathy allows midwives to measure various situations, understand mothers' situation, perspective, feelings, and apply appropriate woman-centered care. It is stated that empathy can contribute to students' humanistic care skills both directly and indirectly through emotional intelligence.

Birth is one of the most private areas where privacy should be protected, and practices done during childbirth cause embarrassment in women, decrease the level of satisfaction and lead to a negative perception of childbirth. Healthcare professionals have both ethical and legal responsibilities regarding privacy. In order to fulfill their duties towards the individuals they care for, they need to protect the privacy of the individual. In a meta-analysis study examining the ethical decision-making process in care and practices, it was found that it is a difficult process to implement the ethical decision-making process and it is affected by many personal and situational factors.

The use of standardized patient or human actors in simulation practice was initiated in 1963 by a neurologist from the University of Southern California. It is stated that the use of standardized patient or human actors adds more realism to the simulation by allowing training in both procedural and communication skills. With the hybrid simulation, which allows the birth process to be animated as in real life, the human element in birth is preserved and the reality shock they will experience in real life is prevented. It is stated that it adds more realism and interaction thanks to psychological reactions, especially during a clinical event.

It is stated that the use of simulation reflection, role playing, pedagogical theater and real-life case studies should be included in the curriculum in midwifery programs. However, it is stated that there are limited studies with midwifery students. It is stated that the use of standardized patients is beneficial not only for learners, but also for standardized patients themselves. Therefore, it is suggested that more research is needed to examine the mutual benefits of using standardized patients in simulation practice. In this context, proving the empathy level and privacy protection effectiveness of the low-cost, high-reality and interactive education model in line with the literature proposal constitutes the original value of the project and our main motivation. The project has a unique value for a sustainable future in terms of its impact at the social level in terms of midwifery students in particular and positive birth experience and qualified midwifery care in general. It will also provide data for the comparison of innovative education methods with traditional education methods. Thus, it will help to improve, regulate or build capacity of future initiatives.