Managing psychological safety in debriefings: A dynamic balancing act

Abstract

Debriefings should promote reflection and help learners make sense of events. Threats to psychological safety can undermine reflective learning conversations and may inhibit transfer of key lessons from simulated cases to the general patient care context. Therefore, effective debriefings require high degrees of psychological safety - the perception that it is safe to take interpersonal risks and that one will not be embarrassed, rejected or otherwise punished for speaking their mind, not knowing or asking questions. The role of introductions, learning contracts and prebriefing in establishing psychological safety is well described in the literature. How to maintain psychological safety, whil..