Analysis of cybersickness in virtual nursing simulation: a German longitudinal study

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Medical Simulation

Background:

• Virtual reality (VR) offers innovative simulation-based education for nursing.
• Head-mounted displays (HMDs) in VR may cause health-related side effects.
• Data on VR side effects, specifically cybersickness, in nursing education is limited.

Purpose of the Study:

• Validate the German version of the Virtual Reality Sickness Questionnaire (VRSQ_G).
• Assess the association of VRSQ_G scores with sex and age in nursing students.
• Evaluate changes in cybersickness symptoms over time during VR simulation.

Main Methods:

• Longitudinal-sectional study involving 38 nursing students.
• Participants completed the VRSQ_G pre-, post-, and 20-minutes post-VR blood draw simulation.
• Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and generalized linear models (GLMs) were used for data analysis.

Main Results:

• The VRSQ_G demonstrated a valid structure with sufficient internal consistency for disorientation and total scores.
• Older nursing students reported higher initial cybersickness scores (VRSQ_G total, oculomotor, disorientation).
• Cybersickness symptoms converged across age groups over time; no association with sex was found.

Conclusions:

• The VRSQ_G is a reliable and valid tool for measuring cybersickness in VR nursing simulations.
• Cybersickness symptoms in VR simulations are positively associated with age.
• Further research is needed on age-related cybersickness and establishing clinical relevance thresholds.