Designing Immersive Virtual Reality Environments for Supporting Patients at Home: Translating Input From Home Care...

Area of Science:

• Nursing
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Virtual Reality Technology

Background:

• Immersive virtual reality (IVR) offers novel experimental and treatment possibilities in nursing.
• The effectiveness of IVR relies on accurately mirroring real-world sensory and task requirements.
• Ensuring fidelity in IVR environments is crucial for clinical and research applications.

Purpose of the Study:

• To generate requirements for IVR environments focused on self-management tasks.
• To guide the design of realistic and effective IVR interventions for nursing.

Main Methods:

• Conducted key informant group interviews with four home care nurse experts.
• Elicited details on common home care challenges, variations, and patient profiles.
• Identified over 20 potential scenarios for IVR development.

Main Results:

• Detailed requirements were generated for IVR environments based on expert nursing insights.
• Two key scenarios were selected for IVR development, translating real-world tasks into virtual experiences.
• The process involved mapping sensory and functional expectations to IVR implementations.

Conclusions:

• Expert input is vital for creating high-fidelity IVR environments for nursing self-management tasks.
• Challenges exist in translating real-world complexities into IVR design requirements.
• This methodology provides a framework for developing effective IVR tools in healthcare research and practice.