Immersive virtual patient simulation compared with traditional education for clinical reasoning: a pilot randomised...

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Virtual Reality in Healthcare
• Physiotherapy Training

Background:

• Immersive virtual patient simulation offers potential for clinical reasoning development in medical education.
• Limited research exists on the effectiveness of virtual reality (VR) in healthcare learning environments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the effectiveness of immersive virtual patient simulation versus text-based learning for physiotherapy students.
• To evaluate student performance and perceptions in a clinical case scenario using VR.

Main Methods:

• A pilot randomized controlled study involving physiotherapy students.
• Experimental group: Immersive 360° video simulation with VR headset.
• Control group: Text-based clinical case presentation.

Main Results:

• Students using VR scored significantly lower on a clinical case exam compared to those using text.
• The performance difference was most notable in the patient history and assessment components (p=0.007).
• Students in the VR group reported high satisfaction and motivation.

Conclusions:

• Traditional text-based learning resulted in higher performance than immersive virtual patient simulation for this clinical case.
• Immersive VR simulation holds promise for training novice history-taking skills in a near real-life context.
• Further research is needed to optimize VR effectiveness in medical education.