The use of an escape room-based learning strategy to enhance pharmacology knowledge among nursing students

Nursing students may experience difficulties in understanding complex pharmacological concepts and applying this knowledge in clinical decision-making processes during their pharmacology education. Traditional teaching methods do not always support active participation and lasting knowledge acquisition in the learning process. Therefore, there is a growing need for innovative teaching strategies in nursing. Educational escape rooms, which have gained popularity in recent years, offer an innovative and promising approach to improving nursing students’ pharmacology knowledge. This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of education provided through an escape room on the pharmacology knowledge levels of nursing students taking a pharmacology course. This study was conducted using a pre-test-post-test single group, quasi-experimental design. The study was conducted with 32 s-year nursing students enrolled in the Pharmacology Course for Nurses. Data were collected using the Descriptive Characteristics Questionnaire (DCQ), Autonomic Nervous System Pharmacology Knowledge Test (ANSPKT), and Gameful Experience Scale (GAMEX). In the analysis of the research data, descriptive statistics (percentage, frequency, mean, standard deviation), the Kolmogorov-Smirnov normality test, and the Wilcoxon signed-rank test were used. The students’ total posttest score (16.16 ± 4.38) on the Autonomic Nervous System Pharmacology Knowledge Test was found to be statistically significantly higher than the pretest score (10.69 ± 4.24). Furthermore, the subdimensions of the test - including knowledge of drugs affecting the sympathetic system (p = 0.003), drugs affecting the parasympathetic system (p < 0.001), neurotransmitters and receptors of the autonomic nervous system (p < 0.001), and the effects of autonomic nervous system drugs on the body (p < 0.001) – also yielded significantly higher posttest scores compared to pretest scores. This study demonstrated that educational escape rooms can be used to improve nursing students’ pharmacology knowledge. Future studies are recommended to investigate the long-term effects of escape room-based learning on knowledge retention and learning outcomes. ClinicalTrials.gov, TRN: NCT07073222, Registration date: 9 July 2025.