Introduction: Nurses need extensive and quality knowledge and good psychophysical abilities for their work. Upon employment, it is expected what they have gained all of this during their education. Several methods are used to prepare students to their best. One of these methods is also role play, which, when used systematically and carefully, enables strong cognitive and emotional activity and, consequently, enables the acquisition of cognitive and affective knowledge and of psychophysical abilities. Aim: The aim of the present diploma thesis is to present role play as a teaching method and its usage in the undergraduate studies as well as in life-long learning of nurses. Method: Descriptive method was used with the study of scientific literature in Slovene and English language, which was obtained via the internet portal Digitalna knjižnica Univerze v Ljubljani and bibliographic databases CINAHL with Full Text, ERIC, MEDLINE, BASE, and Academic Search Complete. The study covered 12 articles. Results: Role play is a method of teaching which gives their students diverse and permanent knowledge; is successful at developing communicative skills; reduces students’ anxiety by giving them higher quality knowledge; enables the connection of theory and practice; enables drills of clinical situations in a controlled and safe environment; develops teamwork skills in students due to the group work organization of teaching. The results are organized in six thematic areas which best summarize the areas where role play proved as useful. Discussion and conclusion: The study of literature answered the given question, by which the purpose and aim were achieved. Through role play, students gain quality and permanent knowledge, while the concrete experience better anchors the knowledge in their subconscious mind. Role play enables to transfer theory in practice in a steady and controlled environment and enables to deal with clinical situations already before the actual clinical situations. Stress and anxiety in students are reduced by training in some very realistic situations. Role play is an adequate teaching method for students of health care as well as for nurses’ lifelong learning. Literature which describes the usage of role play in the area of health care is poor. It is, on the other hand, due to the efficiency and usefulness of this literature, reasonable to use it more in the process of education of nurses. The area of usage should be more intensely included in research and thus contribute to a wider usefulness of this method.
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